The disc spun for a moment before falling flat on the ground where Michelangelo hurried over and scooped it up. His eyes dazzled as he built his master plan. “I gotcha this time Leo… Gooo fetch!” He hopped up and swung the frisbee over the rooftop, aiming away from his older brother.

Leo squatted down and called out, “Got it!” tossing one of his katana blades over the surrounding buildings. With a cocky grin he leapt forward and opened a new portal. The other end cut the air just behind the frisbee, and Leo shot through just in time to snatch it. In his seemingly slow-motion style, he held the frisbee to his chest and turned back to wink at his brothers. He stuck the landing four rooftops away.

Donatello groaned and rolled his eyes at the spectacle. Mikey pouted at the pavement, “Aw man…”

“It’s okay, you’ll get him next time.” Raph sighed and laid a gentle hand on the youngest’s back. He turned to Leonardo, wearing an almost paternal face of irritation and shouted, “Leo, knock it off! I agree with Donnie: not fair!”

Leonardo groaned, “You guys are just mad because I’m good! See, watch this; I bet I can hit Donnie before he can say ‘what?!’” He threw a blade back back towards his brothers, sliced the air in front of himself and pounced through. Donatello was right in his sights; He was so close! Leo held the disc forward with his right hand, aimed directly at the back of his purple-clad brother’s head. He timed it and planned it all so perfectly, and yet… he hit nothing.

Donnie pressed his finger down on the monitor on his arm. The spider legs from his battle shell lifted him up off the ground, and Leo flew just below him and over the edge of the roof. He had a moment of pause to realize he was going to fall. He had failed, outsmarted by his nerdy brother: how unfair!

Donnie quipped flatly, “What?,” and Leonardo fell down the side of the building.

“Ack!” He screeched as he felt wind nipping at his skin. Leo thought hurriedly as he descended, “Open portal. Land. Open portal. Land.” His hands anxiously fumbled to throw one katana down and take a hold of his second, “Open portal!” In a bright flash he found himself on solid ground. He exhaled shakily, and his voice squawked as he spoke, “Land.” He hunched over onto his knees and caught his breath. “Jesus, Don…” He looked back up, seeing his brothers staring down at him, barely holding in their fits of laughter. He crossed his arms and yelled up at them, like a beetle to three very annoying and very rude elephants, “Ha-ha. Very funny, hermanos!” They all began to howl at that.

He huffed and reached to the ground for his fallen blade, planning his ridiculously cool comeback in his head, when he saw a yellow glow at the end of the alleyway. He stared for several moments. His hand relaxed the slightest bit and he tried to peer further. It was just too far for him to see; He needed to take a closer look.

“Hey, c’mon, what’s taking so long?” Raph wheezed out to him, his hand steadying him from his cackling.

Donnie was proudly sitting up on his stilts, “Scared I’ll best you again, ‘Nardo? My older and sportier, yet under-prepared and overconfident brother!?”

Leonardo rolled his eyes and gripped the tsuka of the sword in his hand, “Yeah, yeah… Hold on…” He crept towards the glow. He wove past several trash cans and garbage heaps before he could see the light-source clearly. The air was dense; New York had just finished a three day spell of rainfall. He was impartial about rain, but he hated the way the dampness and heat made the trash smell. He scurried past one particularly stinky pile, plugging his nose and cursing his curiosity. Once his last obstacle was passed, he finally approached the glow. This was a portal: a bright ring with an opening to somewhere else; Sure, it checked off all the boxes, but it wasn’t like the ones he had made before. Hearing a distant voice from the other side, he hid behind a dumpster and watched. What am I looking at? He could barely make out a blue bandana, green skin, red stripes by the eyes, and a sword. His pupils widened.

“Is that me?”

He watched a tall, weathered, warrior-looking mutant racing forward, clinging to the arm of a young human boy. “Casey, come on! You have to- Look out!”

A bright red blast tore through the ground and up towards the portal. Leonardo yanked his head back behind the dumpster as he felt the concrete crumple up into dust beside him. It was deafeningly loud. He held his breath till the beam diminished and the air cleared just enough to see again. Clutching his chest, he built up the courage to turn.

The new turtle mutant was laying on the pavement, barely out of the path of the ray. The boy had been tossed and landed against a boulder on the other side of the portal. Leonardo tried to mentally capture this “other side”. The entire landscape was a wasteland, and the strong smell of smoke and concrete powder drifted through. The man on the ground groaned, so Leo redirected his attention. He discarded the orange disc and rushed forward to assist the warrior in lifting his torso. “What’s going on!?”

The older mutant tried to steady himself, his vision blurring as he attempted to focus on his hand against the damp concrete. “Casey… Casey! He-“ His eyes flipped up quickly to see the young turtle. He froze immediately.

Leonardo gazed back for a moment before the older turtle flung backwards out of his gentle hold. Leo wanted to speak, but was distracted by another red light flickering across the ground and the sound of a machine whirring. He caught a glance of a monstrously large robot-esque… thing… aiming at the masked kid. He ran forward.

“Stop! Please, wait! Don’t-“ The larger turtle scrambled after the smaller. He watched in distraught as the young mutant dashed through the yellow portal. His legs gave out and he stared in horror as the bridge between two worlds collapsed just beyond his fingertips, and his body crumbled to the ground. The tall warrior tried his best to raise himself up again, but his arms failed him. He could feel blood running down his shoulder and mixing together with grime on the concrete. His chest ached and his ears were ringing. Physically, he had felt worse. Emotionally?

His vision was dotted with black and the last thing he saw was a bright orange frisbee to his right. As his head finally fell to the pavement he heard a voice he hadn’t heard in so long.

“Leon?!”