I do not own TMNT.
Leo blinked open his eyes. He was in a small room with bamboo walls. An deep crimson embroidered rug laid on the floor, and a few blades of grass poked through the gaps in the floorboards. A window without glass was cut out in the wall, allowing sunshine to flood into the room and spill out onto the floor. The familiar hum of the city was absent, replaced by twittering birds and the gentle breeze rustling leaves. Leo sat up, the floor, also bamboo, creaking underneath him. He looked around him, vaguely wondering where he was.
Slowly, Leonardo got up onto his feet. The quiet sound of nature was unfamiliar to him, yet comforting. The cabin was peaceful and serene. Leonardo walked up to the window, looking outside. A large cherry blossom tree rose up into the sky. Petals silently broke off from the branches and fluttered to the ground. Leo couldn't help but smile; this place reminded him of his father's stories of Japan.
He reached out a hand to catch a petal drifting through the air. Gently, it rested into the palm of his hand. It was so small and fragile in its beauty. How different this fragment of the tree was from his own, rough hands, worn from years of practicing the martial arts. As he let the petal drift out of his hand, he felt a sense of safety. Something about this place was calming.
Leonardo left the window, wandering into the next room. This one was similar to the first, but a roughly made wooden table stood in the middle of it, and two chairs rested on either side of it. A small, old fashioned stove sat in the corner of the room, and a door leading outside stood ajar. Leonardo wandered about the room, taking it in. There were several oil paintings hung on the walls of different landscapes, some calming, some ominous, but all of them beautiful. He vaguely recalled a story he had heard about Tang Shen.
"Tang Shen loved to paint," Splinter said, his eyes warm, "She was beautiful, yes, but she was also talented. She used to paint scenery and landscapes and sell the artwork for money. When we married I took the paintings she had given to me as gifts and hung them about the house. Her art always had a certain aura of mystery about it. That my sons, is what made it beautiful."
As Leonardo stared at a painting of a foggy valley, and he could almost imagine that Tang Shen herself had painted it. The idea however, was ridiculous. Everything in his sensei's house had been destroyed in fire. Leo shook his head, then drifted out the door somewhat aimlessly. A bird sang from the rooftop above him as he walked over the cherry blossom tree in the front lawn. The sky was baby blue above him, and plains stretched as far as the eye could see, with trees scattered here and there. Leo sighed contentedly, leaning against the tree and closing his eyes. Everything here was peaceful. He could feel himself sliding into unconsciousness, the calm and quiet noises of nature lulling him to sleep. For the first time in a while, he felt completely calm and at peace. Wherever he was, he hoped he'd never leave.
Leo suddenly became aware of the smell of sewage surrounding him. Letting out a small groan, he tried to return to his dream, but it was too far out of his grasp now. Sighing in defeat, Leonardo opened his eyes. He was cold and hungry, and lying in a sewer tunnel. The cold, bleak concrete walls surrounded him, much different from the plains of his dreams. Water dripped off the roof of the tunnel, forming puddles that did nothing to make him comfortable. He stood up, his muscles screaming with protest. He was now wet as well as cold, and near starving. At least his dream had been good.
Slowly, Leonardo made his way to the manhole he had come in through last night and climbed up the ladder, peeking upwards. It was daytime now, and there were people everywhere. Even the alleyways had shady characters scuttling in and out of them. Leo sighed, jumping back down into a puddle. It would be safer to remain down here, but the sewer tunnels all looked frighteningly alike. It was all too easy to get lost in the underground if you didn't know where you were. And he was in a part of a city they had rarely been to, so he wasn't sure which direction to take in the sewers.
"Dang it," he muttered to himself, sitting down and leaning against the wall. He'd either have to wait for nighttime, wander the sewers and risk getting lost, or attempt to slip around the city unnoticed. None of the options sounded appealing. Leo stared at a puddle, watching water from the roof steadily drip into it. He needed a clear head to think this through, but he was still dizzy from exhaustion and hunger.
Frowning, Leo rubbed at his shoulder where the fire had burned his flesh. He was in no condition to be outside the lair, but he hadn't really had a choice in the matter. The fact he had literally slept in sewage couldn't have been good for his injuries. Although the cuts weren't fresh, they were still vulnerable to infection. Leo studied the the burn on his shoulder. It didn't look too bad, but it didn't take a genius to know he should get out of the infectious air as soon as he could.
He thought back to Michelangelo and Splinter. Please get home safely, he thought, bowing his head and closing his eyes for a second. Ever since Raphael had turned rogue, things had become chaotic. His family was falling apart, and as the leader, it was his responsibility to try his best to hold his family together. Suddenly Leo snapped up his head and opened his eyes, then narrowed them.
My family needs me. I have to get home as soon as I can, no matter the risks.
Jumping back onto the ladder, Leo looked upwards into the alleyway through the limited vision of the holes in the manhole cover. A couple of shabby looking men were glancing around nervously as they made a swift exchange. The first man shoved a mysterious box to the second. Neither of them looked like they had seen much food the past few days.
Deciding they were nobody too dangerous, Leo slipped out of the manhole as silently as possible, praying they wouldn't hear the slow scraping noise of the metal cover against the concrete. The process was painfully slow, but Leo couldn't afford to risk going any faster. The manhole cover grated against the ground, slipping further and further off the hole. The two men were talking in undertones, and Leonardo could only catch a few words of their conversation.
"Take...unstable...money…"
Leo didn't like the sound of their conversation, but it was far too dangerous to intervene in broad daylight. He'd be lucky to remain unseen if he clung to the shadows and remained silent. Fighting was out of the question. Slowly Leo crawled out of the hole, feeling more like a freak than ever. The sunlight burned his skin, so used to the dark and wet atmosphere of the sewers. Sending furtive glances over at the two men, Leonardo carefully replaced the cover, then melted into the shadows. He clung to the wall, trying to stay in the sparse shadows there were, but hiding in daylight was doubly as hard hiding at night.
"...mutagen…" the lone word in their conversation reached Leonardo's ears, making him freeze with apprehension. There was something dark going on here; much darker than he'd first assumed. Thoughts flew in and out of his head as he moved closer to the men, suddenly realizing that one of them was a Purple Dragon. He felt a twinge of surprise. They hadn't seen those guys in months; he assumed they had disbanded, due to their lack of skill. It was almost comedic the way that they pulled off crime after crime even when they were always easily stopped. It was a miracle the police hadn't caught them yet; they were a laughingstock among the criminal underworld.
"There's a large sum of money in wait for you if you successfully deliver this," the other man said. His voice was deep, low and gruff. His brown hair was a mess on his head, slick with grease and unevenly cut. A small bit of stubble surrounded his mouth from an uneven shave, and he wore a white t-shirt that was stained in several places. He was a low-life, one of the poorest in the city, desperate for money and willing to do anything to get it.
"What did you call this again?" the gangly Purple Dragon asked, looking to box up and down critically, "Muta-something?"
"Mutagen," the low voiced man growled, "It's highly unstable, so don't drop it. If you do...let's just say bad things will happen. Very bad."
"Who's this for anyways?" the Purple Dragon asked, a hint of suspicion creeping into his eyes, "You ain't settin' me up, are you?"
"Deliver it successfully, and you'll get your money," the man growled, "If you don't, then I'll pay you myself. Just get outta here!"
"Fine, fine, as long as I get my money, I won't let you down," the Purple Dragon said with a wicked grin. He flexed his hands in and out, getting a better grip on the box as his tattooed arms tightened with the weight of his cargo. Leo watched the two men drift away from each other in panic. He had to stop the Purple Dragon from delivering that mutagen; whoever wanted it couldn't need it for a good reason. But it was daytime, and he couldn't possibly get into a brawl without attracting unwanted attention. Helplessly, he watched the Purple Dragon plod down the street, box in hand and a smug smirk filling his face, then turn around the corner and disappear.
Leo wanted to scream, wanted to punch the wall in frustration, but he restrained himself. He couldn't have done anything to stop this; they'd just have to clean up whatever mess the mutagen created later on. Leo sighed, slipping deeper into the alley. If he was going to be wandering around the city in the daytime, he'd need some sort of hood to at least cover his face. A bin labeled "Cloth Recycling" caught his eye, and he quickly opened it up. Clothing filled it entirely, and he took out a slightly used black hoodie. It wasn't much, but it would work. He pulled it on over his chest, knowing that his shell and katana made an awkward lump in the back but deciding there was nothing he could do to make it less apparent. He pulled up the hood, shrouding his face as best he could. Well, it was better than nothing.
Closing the bin, Leo considered his options. The rooftops would be safer than the streets, but a man running across the rooftops and jumping from building to building in broad daylight could only go unnoticed for so long. He'd have to hope that he could make his way through the backstreets and alleyways without losing his sense of direction. His resolution strong, Leo plunged into the city, heading for its very heart.