Parvum's Rise of the TMNT Side Blog

Wayward Son

“Hey D. I hate to ask but- Do you think.” Leo hesitated. “Would you mind taking over pressure duty?”

Two robotic arms shot out and clamped onto Leo’s arm, allowing him to drop his hand. It wasn’t the most comfortable feeling, but it was better than the alternative.

“You are going to be fine ‘Nardo.”

“I know.” Leo breathed. “Raph’ll kill me if I’m not.”

“You are going to need stitches though. Who do you want to do it?”

Leo closed his eyes. With the amount of skateboarding, and weapons practice, and general rough housing. They all had their fair share of giving stitches to each other.

“I’ll do it.”

“You can’t reach.” Donnie deadpanned.

“With a portal I can.”

“That would still be ill advised. I will make it easy for you. Your choice is between Raph and myself.”

Raph would be gentler. But Donnie’s stitches would be neater. There would be less scaring, less chance of messing up his stripes. Also if Donnie was doing the stitching that meant that Raph would be on reassuring hug duty. Leo could definitely go for a reassuring hug. 

“Donna-chu I choose you.”

Donnie groaned. Leo let himself relax more against the wall. Donnie tapped Leo’s forehead. Right between his stripes.

“I do want you to stay awake until Raph gets back.”

Leo groaned.

“We can watch a movie while we wait. Your pick.”

Leo cracked open his eyes.

“I do want to hear the actor's commentary on that special edition.”

Donnie obliged him, holding his phone in one robotic arm so that they could both see it. It was kinda cool to hear the story of how and why dad left Japan. Even if it was mostly told through his co-star’s recollections spliced with old Lou Jitsu interviews.

What was less cool was the fact that Donnie poked him everytime he started to get comfortable. He wasn’t planning on falling asleep. He just wanted to rest his eyes and focus on what was being said. 

“Who the hell are you? And what the hell are you doing here?”

It took Leo a moment, and Donnie flicking off his phone, for him to realize that that wasn’t part of the movie.

Leo blinked. He caught sight of the intruder for a split second as Donnie turned his light towards him. He was definitely a mutant, or a yokai. And he was good, jumping away from the beam of light the second it hit him. 

Bo staff in hand, Donnie stood, the robotic limbs pulling painfully at Leo’s arm. 

Leo focused on his odachi. It was only a foot away, leaning against the brick wall. But he couldn’t reach it. Not before it was too late.

For the second time that night, Leo had sharp steel pointed directly at his throat.

“Alright you, totally not creepy, spider mutant. Tell me what you’re doing here or else-”

Donnie’s answer was to press the end of his staff against the intruder’s chest. Plastron?

“It’s all good.” Leo started. “Let’s all take a nice calming breath-”

“It’s a little late for that.” The intruder countered. Pure white eyes narrowing. “What's your plan?”

Leo raised his good hand in surrender. “No plan. No plan.”

The end of the tech bo reconfigured into something sharp, and probably painful. Donnie’s eyes narrowed to match the intruder’s glare.

“I swear to pizza supreme in the sky, if you make even one move-”

“You think you’d be fast enough to stop me?”

Leo shifted, trying to relieve the pulling on his bad arm, only for the intruder to move his weapon ever so slightly forward. 

Leo stopped shifting. “Please don’t skewer me.”

The intruder made no such promise. And the standoff dragged on. The marching of time only marked by their breaths and the burning pain slowly radiating from Leo’s injury.

A large thud reverberated from the rooftop above them. A spiky, moonlit shadow fell over the standoff.

“Slash, thank goodness. Grab the spider, I’ve-”

“Get away from my brothers.”

It was so good to hear Raph’s voice.

Unnamed Animorphs Rottmnt Crossover

The room was small, cast in a sickly orange light from a single metallic fixture in the ceiling. Along the left wall was a long panel of computers and other salvaged bits of electronics that looked like they were ripped from a Jupiter Jim comic. The right wall was bare except for four shackles. Two were attached by a short length of chain to the wall, the other two bolted into the floor. But the weirdest thing in the room was directly across from the door. It was an old claw bathtub, standing alone without any sort of connected plumbing. 

“It doesn’t look like anyone is in here,” Leo whispered. ”Let’s check for our weapons and get out.”

Mikey raised an eye ridge at Leo. “Where exactly do you think our weapons would be?”

“In the tub.” Leo said, his voice rising at the end of the sentence. “I mean what else would they use it for?”

Mikey rolled his eyes, but he nevertheless entered the room. He hesitated slightly when he passed the shackles. He could see that they were dented, as if they were slammed together repeatedly. And one link of the chain on the wall had bright silver lumps along its seam. A telltale sign that links were recently removed from the chain to make it shorter, perhaps to prevent the shackles from being able to reach each other.

But the most unsettling part was the smooth curved indention on the wall behind the shackles. As if something large and rounded constantly rubbed there.

 Leo laid a comforting hand at the top of Mikey’s shell. He gently guided Mikey forward. Mikey followed, allowing the movement to wash away any concern.

Their weapons were not in the tub. Unless they had been melted down into the thick silver sludge that nearly filled it to the brim. 

But no, despite looking like molten metal, Mikey couldn’t feel any heat on his face as he leaned forward. He could however see something, lots of somethings, writhing just under the surface.

It made Mikey’s stomach flip. He tried to pull away from the tub.

But Leo’s shaking hand didn’t let him.

Mikey saw something slimy breach the surface.

He pulled his head completely into his shell, just as the force on his shell increased, sending him sprawling at the foot of the tub, the edge of his shell scraping the tub rim.

Mikey stayed in his shell for several long seconds. He was expecting Leo to immediately apologize, or at least check that he was ok. But there was no sound at all from his brother. 

And when he finally peaked out of his shell he saw why.

His brother was frozen in place, hands slightly raised. He was facing a human that was pointing something that looked more like a sci-fi phaser than an actual gun at him.

Mikey’s breath caught in his throat. But let it out once he noticed the man’s finger was not on the trigger. If he wanted to shoot them it would take several seconds for him to actually get a shot off. Seconds that they could use. If only Leo stopped freaking out.

“Oh wow,” Mikey said brightly, not taking his eyes off the weapon. “This is just like Jupiter Jim number 709.”

Leo slowly grinned. He nodded slightly at Mikey before focusing on the man. 

“We are ambassadors from the planet Reptilia,” Leo started, swinging both arms in a wide, distracting fashion before he launched into the rest of the speech in the comic.

The speech that the reptilian lizard gave to Jupiter Jim to distract him from the fact that his snake ally was sneaking to disarm and capture him. Mikey just hoped that whoever this random person was, that he wasn’t also a giant Jupiter Jim fan.

Mikey eyed the man carefully. It was obvious that he didn’t know any comics and his incredulous glare was focused solely on Leo.

Mikey grinned, shifted, and lept into an attack.

His trajectory was perfect.

But he never hit his mark.

Mikey’s world spun as he hit the ground. Both of his arms were stuck under his plastron. The weight of his shell and Leo on his back pinning him in place. Both of his legs were chased into his shell by Leo’s foot, locked in place by Leo’s knee.

Leo had pinned him this way hundreds of times, while roughhousing. Usually Leo rested his head on Mikey’s, loudly extolling how comfortable he was until Mikey started licking his hands and they continued their wrestling.

But this time Leo wasn’t relaxing. And his hands weren’t splayed loosely on the ground. Rather they were clamped over Mikey's head and neck. The one on his neck kept Mikey from retreating into his shell, the other forced the side of his head against the ground.

“Leo?” Mikey whimpered.

Leo didn’t respond to him, but instead shouted. “Hurry up, just grab someone.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Mikey could see the man lazily holster his weapon and roll his eyes.

“So much for the weak one,” he scoffed.

The man sauntered forward, and Mikey returned his attention to Leo’s vice like grip on his neck.

“Why would you—”

“Oh relax,” Leo said, his voice cold. “I never called you weak. I see your strength and your potential as a servant to the Yeerk empire.”  

Leo laughed. And Mikey couldn’t help but hope that it was a precursor to the reveal that this was a horribly conceived prank.

However instead of getting off of him, Leo leaned forward. His beak was so close to Mikey’s head that Mikey could hear his breath vibrating the scale that served as Mikey’s ear drum. 

“Your brother on the other hand,” Leo said, sending shivers through Mikey’s shell. "Even now Baby Blue’s begging and crying for us to spare you. He says and I quote ‘you're too delicate to be touched.’”

Unnamed Ouch Donnie leaned against the edge of the roof, rolling his eyes.

Raph was backlit by a brilliant warm light, his shadow strengthening before him.

Fear was etched onto Mikey’s face as he shouted words Leo couldn’t hear. Then Mikey turned towards him.