Everything had gone wrong.
This was supposed to be the end of their journey. They'd found the demigods, they'd convinced them to help them out. Leo had thought that the hardest part was over. Yeah, dealing with the goddess Karai wouldn't be a cake walk, but that was what Raph and Donnie were for. The demigods would fight off Karai, Mikey and Leo would give the heart back to Miwa, and the world would be put right again. It was a simple enough plan, but everything had gone wrong.
Somehow, Miwa wasn't on her island. Donnie hadn't been able to sense her at all. Raph had been overwhelmed by Karai, and he still hadn't come up out of the water. Donnie had immediately gone after Raph, leaving Mikey and Leo on their boat to tensely wait for them. Leo had mostly been worried about the fact that he had no idea what they were supposed to do now, but the longer they waited for Donnie to come out of the water with Raph, the more worried he got about his new friends.
"Where are they?" Mikey asked anxiously. Nobody should be underwater for as long as Raph had been, or even Donnie, who had gone after him. "We need to help them," Leo was about to tell his brother that it was just a little too dangerous for them to go after the demigods when Mikey turned to Leatherhead. "Can you help them?"
"Of course," Leatherhead had been resting in the water, and he dove under as soon as Mikey asked. With Leatherhead gone, Leo and Mikey were left again with nothing to do but wait and worry. After a few long, tense moments Leatherhead came out of the water, pulling Donnie and an unconscious Raph behind him.
Leo quickly moved to the end of the ship to help pull Raph up. He looked extremely pale, making the purplish red bite marks on Raph's shoulder stand out that much more. Leo had seen quite a few bite marks in his time, mostly on Mikey when he'd gone too close to wild animals, but this looked so much worse.
"They look kinda like snake bites," Mikey said worryingly.
"It must've been Karai," Mikey said.
"We have to get out of here," Donnie took his staff, which had separated from Raph's sai, and snapped it forward harshly, causing a strong gust of wind that caught their sails and quickly got them going. Leo had to cling tightly to the wood of the boat to keep himself from losing his balance or falling off. The wind was strong and angry, and it almost seemed to be working against the ocean rather than working with it.
For the next few minutes the wind was too strong for Leo to even open his eyes and see where they were going or how fast. He just had to wait for Donnie to calm down the wind. The only thing Leo could do was use one hand to keep himself from falling and the other around Raph to make sure he stayed on the boat.
Finally Donnie eased up, just as they reached an island. Though it was hard to tell just how far they'd come, as the ocean around them all looked the same to Raph, he couldn't even see the smoke that had covered the skies around Karai. They were more than just a few miles away.
Once the boat hit the shores of the island, Donnie dropped his staff. He went over to Raph and shoved Leo out of the way, harsher than was probably necessary. Donnie grabbed Raph and tried to lift him up. Raph was bigger than Donnie was though, so it was a bit of a struggle. Leo moved to help, but Donnie's glare stopped him from even trying to get close. Donnie wasn't happy at all, and Leo couldn't blame him.
"Is he okay?" Mikey asked as Donnie pushed past him with Raph in his arms.
"Does he look okay to you?" Donnie snapped darkly in a tone that really didn't suit him. This was more of a Raph tone. Mikey's eyes widened and he stepped back in alarm. Leo scowled and stood up, putting himself between his brother and Donnie.
"Hey, he's just worried," Leo said. Said. "Believe it or not, you're not the only one who cares about Raph,"
Donnie's expression softened over so slightly, but he was still really cautious. Donnie brought Raph on shore and laid him down on the sand. Donnie took his shirt off and grabbed one of Raph's sais. He used the sai to cut the hem of his shirt. Once he had it started, Donnie could rip at the shirt until he had a makeshift bandage length.
Leo watched as Donnie gently wrapped up Raph's shoulder. It was a lot looser than Leo would normally bind a cut or bite, but Donnie was doing it so confidently and sure, Leo didn't dare to question his method.
"Should we try to, I don't know, get the venom or whatever that is out of the bite," Mikey asked. "I didn't know that Karai was poisonous."
"I didn't either," Donnie said unhappily. Leo frowned at his words.
"You're a demigod," Leo said. And Donnie also loved knowledge and learning. "You used to regularly interact with the gods. Shouldn't you know about them?"
"I do," Donnie said defensively. "Just...not this goddess." Donnie leaned back and looked up at the sky. "Honestly, I've never heard of this goddess before we were attacked by her five hundred years ago,"
"Really?" Leo frowned. That didn't sound right. "She had to be around before. I mean, goddesses don't just appear out of the blue, do they?"
"Sometimes," Donnie said. "This wouldn't be the first time that a god or goddess just suddenly appeared, this just feels a little different, somehow." Donnie looked at Leo. "Other than the legend about me and Raph, do you mortals have any other tales about Karai? Anything?"
"Uh, no," Mikey said as he frowned in confusion. "We know even less about Karai than you guys do,"
"She must be a more secluded goddess," Donnie said, though he sounded a little uncertain. Leo was sure that Donnie didn't like not knowing something, but he was more concerned about his brother than about his lack of knowledge about this particular goddess. "Seriously, I don't care,"
"But if we're going to go against Karai, we should probably know a little more about her," Leo said.
Donnie turned and looked at him. "We're not going against Karai. Not again."
"What?" Leo looked at Donnie in alarm. "But we need to go back. We have find Miwa,"
"She's not there," Donnie said sternly. "And even if she was, we couldn't return. It's too dangerous."
"We all knew there would be risks," Leo said.
"Saving the world isn't really supposed to be easy," Mikey added. "But now we have a better idea of what to expect. If we all work together,"
"We'll all end up getting ourselves killed," Donnie said. "Look at my brother. Of all of us, he's the only one that actually knows how to fight, and he's...he's…" Donnie trailed off and looked towards his brother in distress. "I don't even know how he is, or how I can help him."
Mikey frowned and tried to move off the boat to check on Raph himself, but the ocean suddenly rose up like a wall in front of him, pushing him back. Leo and Mikey looked at the ocean in shock. It was behaving in a similar way as it had when Raph had been trying to push them away after they left the Hidden City. But Raph was unconscious now. Either Raph felt unsafe in his state, and the ocean was responding to that, the sea was protective of Raph and was forcing everyone else back, or somehow Donnie, who couldn't control the sea, was influencing it to obey him anyways.
Leo really had no idea which was most likely, or which reason he preferred. Either way, he and Mikey were being pushed back by someone who really should trust them right now.
"Donnie, please, we can't just give up," Leo pleaded. He could see Donnie through the water, and he looked like he'd completely given up, and not just on their quest.
"I can't do this anymore," Donnie said. "I'm sorry,"
"I know you're worried about your brother," Mikey said. "I'm worried about him too, but right now the whole world is in danger. Everybody needs help. Our island is dying, our friend is sick, we need to help them."
"The world is bigger than just you and your brother," Leo said. Donnie shook his head.
"Not my world," Donnie said. "I'm sorry about your friend and your island, really I am, I'm sorry, but I can't help you anymore." The ocean rose up onto the boat and surrounded Donnie's staff. It pulled back and washed the staff back onto the shore. Donnie picked up the staff and looked sadly at Leo and Mikey. "You guys should just go home."
"We can't just leave you here," Mikey frowned. "We have the boat. If we leave, you and Raph will be stranded."
"There are plenty of trees on this island," Donnie pointed out. "We can build our own raft and leave at any time."
"But what if you can't," Leo frowned. "The gods wouldn't let you leave your other island, what if they do the same thing now."
"We'll face that if we have to," Donnie said. "And I'd rather be trapped on an island with my brother than out in the world without him,"
"We're not leaving you," Leo said sternly. Donnie sighed and lifted his staff. Leo realized too late what Donnie was about to do.
"Wait, don't!" Leo moved to get off the boat, but Donnie waved his staff and pushed a powerful gust of wind into their sails. Leo and Mikey both lost their balance and fell at the sudden lurch that the boat gave.
Mikey was the first to recover. He sat up and looked around frantically, but there was nothing to see. They were out in the middle of the ocean, with no smoke, no goddess, no island, and no friends in sight. The wind gust was finally starting to slow down, but Leo didn't care much at this point. What was the point of them stopping if they were too far away to do what they needed to do?
"Why did you do that?" Mikey knelt at the edge of the boat and looked desperately at the sea. "We could have helped them. We wanted to help them."
"Don't try to argue with the sea, Mikey," Leo said. It was one thing he'd come to learn from Raph. The sea may help people, but it wasn't obligated to do anything. It was far too finicky to be completely reliable. The ocean may have helped them to get this far, but Leo wasn't exactly surprised that it had done something like this.
Still, Leo didn't completely understand why the sea would help them on their quest to return the Heart, only to turn around and send them in the other direction. Leo found it hard to imagine that the sea suddenly wasn't desperate to help the earth and the gods. Just what was the ocean's goal here?
As though the sea could tell he was confused, or it didn't like that Mikey had questioned it, a moment later the ocean stilled as much as the breeze had. There wasn't even the smallest of waves in the water. Everything was quiet and calm, which could have been nice, except their boat was left not moving at all. At least for the moment, they were stranded in the middle of the ocean with no idea of where they were, or where they should go from here.
Leo sighed and sat next to his brother. For a few minutes the two of them just sat in silence and watched the sun set on the horizon. It was a beautiful sight, but Leo couldn't focus on anything except that with every passing minute, the sky was getting increasingly darker. Leo and Donnie had been sailing at night before, but not when they were already in such low spirits. Before, the complete darkness of the sea and sky at night had been too impressive to be unnerving. Now, the sun hadn't even set yet, and Leo already felt like the night and total darkness was a bad omen of their circumstances.
Mikey fiddled with the Heart of Miwa, a distressed expression on his face. "What are we supposed to do?"
"I don't know," Leo sighed. "I would love to help the others, but Donnie made it clear that he doesn't want us around. We have no idea where Miwa is, and even if we did, there's no way we'd be able to do anything without Donnie and Raph's help right now."
"Why not?" Leatherhead asked. Leo and Mikey looked at him in slight shock. "Why do you need the help of the godlings?"
"They're the ones that stole the Heart of Miwa," Mikey said. "They're supposed to be the ones to give it back,"
"But why them?" Leatherhead asked. "You have the Heart, and a boat. Why can't you return the heart yourselves?"
Leo and Mikey stared at each other. The thought really hadn't crossed either of their minds. They'd been hearing the legends about Donnie, Raph, and the Heart of Miwa since they were children. They knew the story by heart, and a big part of the story had been when Master Splinter had said that while the problem had been caused by the demigods, it would also be fixed by them as well.
But while many myths and legends came from a place of truth, that didn't mean that everything about it had to be completely accurate. It was still a story.
"We...we can't just do this without them," Mikey looked at the Heart of Miwa, a new look in his eyes. "We're just mortals,"
"And I don't know if this is just about returning the Heart anymore," Leo said. Miwa wasn't the only one who had been hurt in this story. In the stories, Donnie and Raph were always portrayed as fools who didn't know any better, just shy of being villains. Meeting the demigods though and really getting to know them, Leo recognized just how much they'd both been hurt by this situation. They felt abandoned by everybody.
Leo didn't think it was right. The demigods may have been alone for five hundred years, but they were all friends now. Donnie and Raph should know that they weren't on their own, and knowing that they still didn't get it made Leo feel slightly sick.
They needed to return the Heart and make things right in the world, but Leo still felt it was just as important that they make things right with Donnie and Raph.
"We have to make it right," Leo said. "Everything right."
"It wouldn't really feel right to just go home and pretend that everything's okay when it's not," Mikey said. "And we can't really expect someone else to fix things when we're the only ones that have the Heart."
"I don't blame Donnie for wanting to back out," Leo frowned as he remembered the look on Donnie's face when he'd forced them away. Raph was hurt, and now Donnie was scared and completely on his own. It didn't feel right. "We can't ask him to put himself and his brother at risk," Even if it was for the sake of the rest of the world, it wasn't fair to force anybody to sacrifice their own lives.
"No, we can't," Mikey agreed. "But we can't abandon the world either."
"So I guess we're actually going to do this," Leo took a deep breath. He stood up. "We're going to return the Heart of Miwa ourselves."
"Now we just gotta find Miwa," Mikey raised an eyebrow. "Kinda easier said than done, since Raph and Donnie were our leads."
"They only knew where they were going because they were being guided by the wind and sea," Leo said. "We don't have the air with us, but I think the sea might be willing to lend us a helping hand," Leo wasn't all that eager to trust the ocean, since it had already brought them to where Miwa was supposed to be, and the goddess hadn't been there at all, only Karai had been.
"It's worth a shot," Mikey knelt next to the water and put his hand in it the way that they'd seen Raph do multiple times when he really wanted to connect with the ocean. "Hey, man, I know you don't owe us any favors, but we're not ready to give up on this. We want to return the Heart, without Raph and Donnie, but we don't know how to do it. If you're willing, we'd really appreciate your help,"
For a tense moment, everything was still. Eventually though, the sea picked up. The waves weren't very strong, but they were going in a clear direction. Leo adjusted the sails, just like how Donnie had shown him, and caught what little of a breeze there was. They didn't know exactly where they were going and what they would find there, but Leo and Mikey were completely determined to finish what they'd started this time.
A/N: I was originally planning on having Splinter and April basically giving the whole 'you don't need the help of the demigods, you're strong enough to do this on your own' speech to Mikey and Leo via, like, astral projection or something, but it didn't feel quite right. This whole time I've also wanted to give Leatherhead something more to do, so I decided to have him spark the whole idea, and then have Mikey and Leo basically give the motivation to each other. It felt more natural this way.
