Author's Note: To celebrate 6 years on Fanfiction I decided to post a little oneshot I've had lying around for a while as a bonus piece this week to the usual 1056 Hours update. I did post it on DA a long time ago but never put it here, so now here you go. Welcome to the horrible world of SAINW. It's short, but not sweet. Enjoy.

It Begins

A SAINW Story

I guess it started the night they took Leo. Looking back on how our lives were transformed in those couple of months, I can now see how we fell apart, how the very bonds of our brotherhood were slowly disintegrated until we had no choice but to leave one another before we ended up hurting one another… Or worse.

It began one patrol late at night when we were covering several blocks each. Leo didn't call in as we were heading back yet we didn't give it a second thought. He missed the next hourly call. And the next. That was when we began to worry.

We entered the lair with tears in our eyes, vacant looks on our faces and guilt on our minds after we spent the next five hours searching, with our only clues being the bloodied swords and mask in our hands. We found those at the base of a skyscraper.

Even Splinter looked lost. We couldn't work out what to do at first, so we did what we were each best at. Splinter rallied our friends around the city to help search for clues, Raph went out every night- sometimes with Casey, sometimes without- to scour old labs and question our enemies while Mikey made sure we all ate and remembered we were still part of a family, even without our leader. I kept my findings to myself, that the blood on the sword was Leo's, scared that my secret would break my brothers.

Twelve days. That's how long it took for us to get the lead we needed. Two hundred and eighty eight hours. For those twelve days, our brother was trapped in a scientific facility owned by some amateur university drop outs with a thing for dissecting creatures in horrific experiments. We were scared Leo would be hurt when we found him, mortally wounded or even… Dead.

But reality was worse. We were too late.

If it wasn't obvious from the blades still sticking out from his skin and the bruises and cuts littering his skin, the half crusted blood still dripping from his eyes pointed to what I feared, it was his first words to us which confirmed our deepest fear.

"Guys? Guys? Are you there? Where are you?"

We were standing right in front of him.

Those butchers had slashed his eyes. Leonardo was blind.

The precise slits across his bloodied skin told of scientific minds mapping out the anatomy of a mutant, yet the deep, messy cuts told another story- one of anger and torture. We saw red at that and so left our father to help Leo while we slaughtered the men who did this to our brother, not stopping until every last person was dead.

At first, I was concerned that Leo wouldn't approve of what we did, but none of us regretted our actions. Casey and April supported our choice when we eventually told them while Splinter never rose the subject.

When we got him home, I spent the night attempting to stabilise him, and doing what I could. But the damage to his retinas was permanent. He would never see again.

I have never forgotten breaking the news to him, how could I? He just continued looked forward blindly, muttered an almost silent "oh" and fell back into silence. Leo looked broken.

The next weeks gave way to a long list of firsts: the first time Leo snapped at us without remorse; the first time he started an argument with Raph; the first time he got drunk; the first time he arrived late for training and the first time he yelled at Splinter and left halfway through training.

Our leader had become reckless, irresponsible and separated from our team. We tried to get through to him, but whatever they had done to him broke him. The damage was so bad that one day Splinter pulled Raph and Leo aside and explained that Raph would take over as leader until Leo became more 'balanced.'

That night there was a serious fight between our eldest brothers from which both walked away injured. Leo had crosses of slashes across his face from Raph's sais and Raph has deep slashes to the back of his shell, reflecting the way the scientists had left Leo's own swords in his own.

Then another problem came only days later. Another group of rouge scientists came for us. In the mist of battle, Mikey was heard screaming. They had cut off his arm in one fell swoop and then caught Raph's left eye as he stepped in to defend his little brother. Leo moved in to help despite his blindness, but knowing that the former leader wouldn't be enough to hold back the men, Splinter ordered them to retreat and sacrificed himself to save his sons.

After that, tensions got worse, Mikey lost his happy-go-lucky nature, Leo stayed long enough to ensure Mikey healed without incident, then left the lair to work alone. Raph remained with Mikey for slightly longer, but ended up staying out so late that he barely saw Mikey, and eventually, he too left.

Of course I only learnt all this from April a month after a Donnie from another dimension came and defeated the Shredder but by then it was too late. I had left my brothers to die. I should of told them I planned to leave, but after Raph was appointed leader, I'd had enough and needed space. I heard of what happened to Splinter through web chatter, but that he'd been taken to a lab to be experimented on, so I searched for him, unaware he was in fact mortally wounded and taken home by my brothers in a vain attempt to save him. So I hopelessly sought out my father, rescuing other mutants along the way from various labs and Shredder owned facilities.

But I never stopped thinking of how it all began. How we fell apart without Leo. Who would have thought all this death and destruction would come out of one single mutant being tortured? Maybe that shows just how important our brother was, and just to think- we never realised that in all our years together.

Forever more I will see him lying in a pool of his own blood, his own katanas sticking out of his shell with shards of knives sticking out from his skin, the way his hands reached for ours beneath the weight of the shackles and how he called for us through the blood running down his face.

We weren't quick enough to save our brother, and the world paid the price.

That was how it began.

That is the real reason behind the nightmare.

Once one falls, all followed.

And it was my poor brothers who ended up paying the price.

Yet I wasn't there.

I never said goodbye.

And I never will have the chance to.

*Hides under a rock so not to get killed*

I'm so sorry everyone. Welcome to my idea of how Same As It Never Was occured.

Leave your thoughts.

Till next time

LL99 Out. :)