Leo stepped into the portal room back home. He found his brothers waiting for him in the quiet room. Quiet because there was no one in it right now.
"Leonardo..." Mikey almost whispered as he made his appearance "Donatello brought us back here... I don't...want to be here."
"I had no other way." Donnie explained as he took a look at his younger brother's torn face. "There are no other portals that we could have used and it would have been to risky just trying to pop one open...no way I can calculate where we would end up."
Mikey was looking around like a trapped animal, his eyes wide as he tried to find a way out. Leo immediately reached out and put his hands on his brother's shoulders and turned him to face his older brother fully. "Michelangelo, listen to me." Mikey's head was still looking frantically around and Leo knew he was going to panic soon. "Mikey... My little Mikey..." Leo tried again in a soft tone. The smaller turtle's eyes widened at the nickname and looked up at him. "It's ok. We will stay only long enough to grab some gear and weapons from our rooms, then we will go. I promise."
"And where exactly are we supposed to go to?" Raph snapped at him. "Not like we have a place to go."
Leo looked over Mikey's head and met his brother's eyes. "Then we will just have to make our own place Raph."
"You're serious..." Raph whispered back as he also was stunned by his childhood nickname. "You want to...leave him..."
Leo just calmly returned that stunned gaze, even as he still had his hands on Mikey's shoulders. "If I don't, then I will lose him Raph. Even you can see he has been struggling with this. As we all have. It's time to move on. To save Mikey if for no other reason."
"Just long enough to get our gear?" Mikey asked quietly, like a broken child who was asking for the nightlight to stay on to keep the monsters away.
"Gear up and go." Leo quietly confirmed as he gently turned Mikey towards the door, then kept an arm around his shoulders as he walked next to him.
They didn't make it to the door however when it suddenly slammed open. Ninjas filled the room and Spencer came rushing in behind them. Donnie's assistant skidded to a stop even as Leo removed the arm and narrowed his eyes at the human who was looking back at them in astonishment. "This I didn't expect to find when the sensor alarms went off." He took in their weary appearance and the total lack of weapons and any kind of decent gear and clothing. "The Master will no doubt want to see you. I expect he will want a full explanation."
Mikey was trembling next to him but Leo quietly laid a calming hand on his elbow, where Spencer couldn't see it. He had to play this very carefully. "And he will get one, but not until we are presentable. I will not risk insulting him by showing up like this."
"Very well. I'll go let him know you are here."
"You do that." Leo told him as he gave him a cold look, one that he wasn't really faking. He despised the man. "We will return to our rooms." He raised a dangerous eyeridge at him. "I trust they have remained untouched? I'd hate to have to go find my things. Might inconvenience me to the point some individuals might not survive the retrieval process."
Spencer's face paled a little at that. "No, no. No need for that. The Master left orders for your rooms to be left alone. He somehow knew you would make it back, though the rest of us were beginning to doubt it."
Leo almost snorted. They did make it back, no thanks to him. It was the turtles he had originally been sent to destroy that he should be thanking... The irony of that almost made him laugh humorlessly. "I see. I will hold you personally responsible then if all isn't exactly the way we left it." Spencer paled even more as they walked out of the room.
Once out of sight Leo quickly moved to support a violently trembling Mikey even as Donnie moved in on his other side. Leo knew that his little brother was trembling, he could feel his agaist his body as he shook. He was tired and weak still from their ordeal, but most of it was from fear. All of this had broken his little brother more than he had expected and he was silently cursing the man he no longer wished to serve and Bishop. Between the the cruelty of both of them, Mikey was on the verge of a total mental collapse. "Stay with me little brother." He whispered quietly. "I'll get you out of here."
"We'll get you out of here." Raph corrected just as quietly from right behind them, his eyes filled with concern for the shaky turtle.
They maneuvered the hallways as quick as they could, staring down any servants who looked too closely as to why the normally brutal turtles were showing kindness, especially to one of their own. Their hate for each other was well known here. Leo was determined to change that.
It was Mikey's room they reached first and Donnie opened the door for Leo who guided him inside. "Hurry." he told his brothers who stood outside. "I don't know how much time we have." They just nodded and quickly disappeared in their own rooms.
Mikey stood in the middle of the room, his eyes roaming the sparse place. The only furnishings in here were the weapons hung on the walls and a simple dresser where his gear and spare clothing were stored. "Mikey?"
"This is no home." He mumbled. "This room holds nothing but memories of nightmares, pain and suffering..."
"I know Mikey..." Leo calmly told him. "Just grab what you need."
Mikey just nodded as he moved to the dresser and pulled out some things while Leonardo grabbed some nunchaku off of the wall along with some kunai, shuriken and a few other things. By the time he had grabbed enough to feel that his brother would be suitably armed Mikey had finished dressing, and just stared at the weapons Leo held in his hands, his eyes sad. But he did reach out and placed them where they went into the harness he was now wearing. "How much innocent blood have I spilled with these..." He mumbled quietly as he took the 'chucks.
Leo didn't know how to answer that, but he did lay a comforting hand on his brother's shoulder. "Come on." Mikey just numbly nodded as they made their way out the door. Donnie was already waiting out in the hall and Leo left Mikey with him while he entered his own room.
He fully felt his little brother's despair as he stood in his own room. Everything here reminded him of things he had done. The weapons of brought memories of the innocents he had killed, the bed reminded him of the nightmares he had, even the walls...how many women had he brought here ended up huddled in fear along them? Before he killed them... He wasn't surprised to find his own hands trembling slightly as he dressed and rearmed himself. The room screamed evil at him and he just wanted to leave it.
He stepped out into the hallway a short time later to find Raph had by now joined his brothers, and so had someone else. "Looks like you freaks didn't die after all." Hun growled at them as he stood in the hallway with his arms crossed.
"Like you got room to talk about being a freak." Raph growled back at him. "Are those genetically modified muscles squeezing what's left of your brain yet?"
"Watch your mouth, reptile." Hun snarled at him.
Quicker than Hun could react, Raph pulled out a sai and placed the tip under his chin. "Maybe you should watch yours."
Leo had shifted during this exchange to where Mikey was now standing behind him, trying to keep Hun from seeing how battered the youngest was right now. "What do you want Hun?" Leo asked him. "Besides testing how far you can push us before we decide to slice you open to shut your ass up?"
"You can't talk to me that way." His eyes were wide already, but widened a bit more as Raph inched the tip into his chin a bit.
"I just did." Leo told him.
"Things have changed around here!" Hun told them. "You aren't the Master's favorites anymore!"
"Have they now?"
"Indeed, they have my student." Shredder's voice came from down the hall as he approached them. "I see you have now made yourself presentable, now you may tell me exactly what has transpired to result in your long absence." He looked them over, his dark eyes calculating, then widened when they reached Mikey. "Your eyes..." Came out in a hushed tone. "What has happened to your eyes?"
Leo turned to look at Mikey and was met with the baby blue orbs he used to have. They looked out clear, untainted as he looked back at Leo confused. Stunned he stared at him, for the moment forgetting who was standing in the hallway with them.
"What has happened!" Shredder roared this time. Once that tone had struck fear in Leo, now it just filled him with annoyance as he exchanged looks with Raph. The larger turtle letting out a quick wink at him.
"You wish to know?" Leo asked as he turned back towards the man who had robbed them of so much. "Then consider it the last thing I do as your student and follower." He calmly told the large man. Hun's breath came in as a shocked hiss as Shredder's eyes widened again at those words. "We've decided not to follow you anymore, that's what happened."
"You...defy me?!" He roared again.
His temper tantrum was cut short however when Hun suddenly crashed into him and they both went tumbling to the floor. "Oh...shut up!" Raph snapped after he launched the large man at him.
Leo didn't even try to engage, he just grabbed Mikey's arm and began to drag the youngest behind him as he took off running. "Where to?" Donnie asked as he pulled on Mikey's other arm.
"Roof!" Was the quick reply. It would take them to long to try and make it to the main doors, which was stories below them. Shredder would doubt have a more than enough time to reinforce that entry/exit point. The roof however was only a few stories above them.
They crashed into the stairwell, knocking the door off of it's hinges, and charged up the stairs. Mikey snapping out of his depression long enough to motivate his two feet on their own and they moved much faster. They door to the roof got the same treatment and it went flying into the stunned roof guards, knocking them over. They didn't pause, even as the elevator opened not far away and Shredder and Hun came pouring out, along with a group of ninjas. "If you shall not serve me, then you shall die by my hand! I will kill you all just like I did that pathetic rat!"
"Father..." Mikey whimpered, faltering for a moment. "Maybe we would be better off if he did kill us..."
Leo was about to turn and grab his arm again to help him along, But raph came up from behind and did it. "Father would be proud of what we are doing Mikey." His deep voice rumbled quietly. "Giving up on this new life we haven't even tried yet, not so much."
Donnie pulled out a rope and grappling hook as they neared the edge of the building and smoothly threw it over the gap to the rooftop farthest away. "Grab it!" He snapped as he tossed the end of the rope to the rest of them. Leo and Raph gabbed it with one hand and held Mikey with the other, then the three brother's laughed off of the building, letting gravity rapidly widen the distance between them and their former home and everything they had ever known.
"I will find you!" Shredder roared from the rooftop. "There is no where here you can hide from me! I will find you!"
They landed on a rooftop and Leo briefly looked back, for an instant wondering if they could survive out here. Maybe they couldn't, but at least they tried. After a slow sigh he turned back to his brothers. Lying one arm across his little brother's shoulder, he led them away from here and on to a new life.