Happy Mutation Day!
It's time for another fanfic, so buckle up, here we go! This fic is sort of combining ideas from a TMNT movie that never got made, and also some what-ifs about the farmhouse arc.
I'll update every Sunday, but the frequency of updates might decrease when NaNoWriMo rolls around, as I want to spend some time working on my original novel.
Happy reading!
Leonardo left the dojo, sheathing his swords as he walked into the living area. "Ten minutes until patrol," he reminded Raphael and Michelangelo as he walked past where they were watching TV on the couch.
Raph kept his eyes on the TV. "Yes, fearless. We know. We have patrol at the same time every day."
"Still thought I'd remind you," Leo said with a pointed look at Mikey. "Attendance hasn't always been punctual, especially when you're distracted."
Michelangelo pulled his eyes away from the screen and realized Leo had been talking to him. The glare from the TV clearly lit his sheepish grin and half-shrug.
"As if we missed anything," Raph said. "The Foot and Kraang have both been quiet for ages. We're going to be out there for hours and nothing's gonna happen, just like yesterday. And the day before that, and the one before that, and-"
"Which means they're due," Leo interrupted. "We have to stay vigilant. They'll attack any day now. And when they do, my bet is their force will be all the more deadly."
"Then would they hurry up? Between sitting on the rooftops and listening to your lectures, I'm gonna die of boredom quicker than I would in battle."
Leonardo shot Raphael a disapproving glare. He opened his mouth and took a step forward, jabbing a finger at Raph's chest.
"Guys!" Donatello exclaimed.
The three looked at the lab's doors in time to see their genius brother skid to a stop there.
Donnie gestured for them to follow him into his lab. "I found something!"
Raph and Leo exchanged a glare before Raph stood, swatting Leo's accusing hand away, and followed Donnie into the lab.
Leo humphed and followed, with Mikey right behind him.
"What's up, Donnie?" Mikey asked, propping his elbows on Donatello's desk and his head in his hands. His eyes trailed across the desk to where the Kraang communication orb was plugged into Donnie's computer.
As if to answer his question, the orb started to hum rhythmically, pink dots flashing across its surface in circular patterns.
Donatello rushed into his lab chair, spinning once before coming to rest in front of the screen with a mutter of "Again?". He pulled the signal coming from the orb onto the computer, displaying a fast-moving stream of illegible Kraang chatter. "This is the second time it's gone off." With a few keystrokes, he coded the symbols to translate into English, and read the document as fast as he could, eyes flicking left to right as the words whizzed by on the screen. "Weird. This one says pretty much the same thing as the last. Why would they send the same thing twice?"
"What is it, Donnie?" Leo asked.
"It seems like the Kraang are establishing a new base in the middle of town," Donnie explained. "These are instructions for the Kraang who've been assigned to that post."
The orb fell silent, and the words on-screen came to an end.
"Alright!" Raph cracked his knuckles with a smirk. "I've been waiting for another chance to show those gum wads who's boss!"
Leo stopped Raph with an outstretched palm. "Hold up. I thought the orb was only supposed to go off when the Kraangs' signals were overloaded. Like, when they're about to launch something really big. Are you sure this isn't something more than just making a new base?"
Donnie scrolled through the text, searching it, then shook his head. "It looks like this base will be pretty small. It says something about mutagen-DNA testing, but if it was important to them, they'd pick somewhere bigger to be able to fit more security. Looks like we got the signal out of a messaging error. They were careless." He chuckled. "It's almost like they wanted us to catch them."
Raph twirled his sais. "Glad to."
Leo furrowed his brow. "I don't think-"
"Come on, fearless," Raph interrupted, sheathing his sais. "You wouldn't want to make us late for patrol now, would you?" He inclined his head towards the youngest turtle. "You'd be setting a bad example for Mikey." He left, not letting Leo get in another word.
Leo instead let out an exasperated sigh and followed him out of the lab and towards the exit. He stopped and turned to address Donnie. "You got any more retromutagen?"
"Yeah, just one more dose," Donatello replied. "The other batch is in progress."
"Bring it along," Leo said. "Just in case. Get your weapons."
The youngest two complied, making sure they were ready for patrol, then promptly leaving.
Unattended in the lab, the orb's hum whirred to life a third time, its signal playing the exact same message on the computer's screen.
"They're learning," was the first thing Donatello said when they arrived at the address the orb had given.
While vague, the simple sentence struck an ominous chord with Leonardo. He knew exactly what Donnie was referring to, and agreed entirely.
The Kraang hadn't chosen a nameless, run-down complex or hole-in-the-wall corner for their base. This one was unsuspecting, a short, cute little red-brick building with brightly colored awnings and flowerbeds in its windows, complete with a welcome mat outside the front door. No passerby would think it suspicious. Amidst all the color, no one thought to notice that the sorry, we're closed sign had been turned to its unwelcoming side for so long the sign had started to gray with sun and dust.
Leo waited until the street was clear of humans, then signaled for them to move.
The four dashed to the door and waited for Leo to pick the lock.
The rusty hinges creaked open, and the four of them slunk into the dark, musty room.
Once his eyes adjusted, Leo looked around and considered maybe the Kraang hadn't arrived yet. There was nothing Kraang-y about the room.
The little florist's consisted of a few stands where bouquets were stacked in tiers, proudly displaying the finest, most expensive flowers in the middle where the customers were sure to see them. A trowel and watering can lay atop a cupboard with potting dirt spilling out of its cracked door, and Leo's training led him to believe the spill was recent－dust hung in the air with the scent of earth so thick you could taste it. A few planters lay stacked around the cupboard in varying sizes and numbers.
"This doesn't seem right," Donatello hissed. "Do you think they haven't started working here yet?"
"I thought so, too," Raphael replied, "But a flower shop doesn't need that many cameras."
Donatello and Leonardo looked up.
Raph was right. Surveillance was thick and obvious, with so many cameras littered across the ceiling it was as if the owners wanted to see every angle of every customer at all times.
"Donnie, I need you to find the tapes and wipe them." Leo whispered. "If the Kraang haven't taken this shop over yet, we risk the humans discovering us."
Donatello nodded and crept to the back of the shop, walking behind the counter and through an open doorway labelled EMPLOYEES ONLY.
"Ooooooo, pretty," Michelangelo murmured, eyes glued to a bright planter of flowers on display at the front desk. He picked up the pot of flowers and gave them a good sniff. "Huh. They don't smell very pretty. Kinda metal-y, actually. But they look really pretty! Shiny."
"What?" Leo walked towards him and peered over Mikey's shoulder.
The flowers were, indeed, shiny, much more than flowers should be. "They're fake, Mikey."
One of the flowers moved.
Mikey shrieked and dropped the flowerpot.
It crashed and split on the ground.
"Mikey!" chorused three voices.
Michelangelo ducked his head.
Leo gasped as an iron shutter slammed over the door behind them and the lights went red.
Raphael glared at his youngest brother. "Mikey, can you go two seconds without screwing something up?"
Michelangelo made a strangled noise and pointed at the floor.
Donatello jumped the counter to crouch beside him with a strangled "Woah…"
There was no dirt spilled on the floor, no fragments of shattered pottery. Instead, the flower pot had cracked up the middle, the crack splitting the flowers as well, revealing sparkling wires and circuit boards.
Donnie shifted one of the undamaged flowers, its metallic petals glinting in the red light with the movement, and examined its center. Where there should have been the pollen tube, a little lens looked back at him. "The flowers are cameras, too!"
Raph drew his sais. "What the heck is going on?"
An awful metallic groaning filled the room, then the back wall started to sink, revealing an elevator made of the familiar pink and silver design the turtles had seen in so many Kraang facilities.
The turtles stared at the elevator, uneasily, as if it might explode. If they all jumped when it chimed and the doors slid open, no one said anything.
"One way to find out." Leo walked in.
Donatello and Michelangelo looking at each other, Donatello's eyebrows shooting up and Michelangelo letting out a whimper.
They crowded into the elevator and watched their chance at escape disappear with the shutting doors.
The elevator jolted, and they sank below ground.
The four listened for any indication of Kraang, but heard only the whirring of the elevator and the occasional whoosh of the car passing a floor. The car came to a stop, and there was a moment of still before the ding. The doors slid open.
Leo poked his head out. There were no Kraang to be found. Only an empty hallway extended in front of them.
He signaled that the coast was clear, and the four dashed out and down the hall.
There was only one option at the end of the hall, and that was to go right. This time, there was a pair of Kraangdroids at the beginning of the corridor, standing still and facing away from them. Easy targets.
Leo rounded the corner and swung his swords in an X shape, slicing both of the robots with ease, and continuing on.
Again, the only option was a right turn. This time, there were two pairs of Kraangdroids, both turned away from them, one at the beginning of the hall and one at the middle.
He signaled for Raph to creep behind the first pair, then snuck towards the middle pair himself, knowing Raphael would have taken care of the first by the time they had the chance to spot him. So far, so good.
He glanced behind him to find Donnie examining a camera on the ceiling.
Crap. So much for stealth. As soon as the Kraang manning the cameras saw them, they were done for.
But there hadn't been an alarm yet, and Leo decided that the best option now was to keep going stealth until they were discovered.
Left turn at the end of the hallway. Three pairs of Kraangdroids. More cameras. Again, the alarm did not sound, even when they came into view of the cameras.
Another one-way turn at the end of the hallway.
"Wouldn't it be more efficient for them to connect all their halls instead of sending their droids through this maze?" Donnie whispered.
Next corner. Four pairs. Four of them. No problem. More cameras.
Next corner. Still four pairs, except this time, one of them was moving.
Next corner. This time, some were facing them. Leo found it was like a puzzle, making him strategize how to proceed stealthily with each slight change.
Next corner. A little trickier. More cameras, but still, there was no alarm, and they didn't hear anyone coming.
"Dude, it's like the arcade games," Mikey said. "Harder level each time. Who do you think the final boss is gonna be?"
"This… something isn't right," Donnie hissed.
"Yeah," Leo agreed. "It's definitely fishy."
"I feel like something's missing." Donatello clasped his hands under his chin, eyes flicking side to side. He gasped. "The Kraang!"
"Uh, no crap, Sherlock." Raph said.
"No, not the robots, the actual Kraang piloting them. We only damaged their robot bodies, but none of the Kraang inside tried to escape or warn anyone."
Mikey ran back and peered down the previous corridor. The Kraang were still inside their no longer functional robot bodies, laying where they'd fallen.
He rushed to rejoin his brothers, clinging closer by their sides than before. "Bros, this is freaky."
Raph looked at Leo. "What do we do?"
Leo glanced around the next corner. "I'm gonna let them see me."
Before Donnie could get in his "Wait, what?", Leonardo rushed around the corner, swords drawn, and waited.
His brothers joined him.
The Kraang facing them beeped, alerting the others, and they all raised their lasers.
Leo stood still, staring them down.
"Um, Leo?" Donnie asked. "What do we do?"
"Don't attack," Leonardo replied.
"What?"
"Trust me."
"Kind of hard to when you want me to take enemy fire!"
The Kraang, however, did not open fire.
"Now, take them down!"
Leo charged, katanas positioned to cut down the first two.
"Now that's more like it!" Raph yelled, leaping into the bulk of the Kraang.
The robots opened fire now, allowing pink lasers to speckle the battlefield with an ever-decreasing number of Kraang on it.
"Wow, Leo," Raph chuckled. "These guys have worse aim than the enemy soldiers on your dorky Space Heroes show. What were they… thunder soldiers?"
"Storm soldiers," Leo corrected. "What are these guys up to? This isn't their usual… anything!"
"I know!" Donatello agreed. He swung at a Kraangdroid like a baseball.
The blow sent the said Kraangdroid stumbling back into the wall, where the collision resounded with a hollow clink.
"What?" Donnie approached the wall and gave it a good knock. "There's something behind this!"
"On it," came Raph's voice. He got a running start and proceeded to kick the wall, jarring an entire sheet of metal out of place.
He and Donatello grabbed opposite sides of the sheet and freed it from the wall, then used it to throw at another robot.
"Kraang! The turtles have found the place which is the place which the turtles were not intended to have found!" The bot couldn't say any more, as Raph promptly sent a sai through its metal skull.
Donnie gasped. "Guys! It's a secret passage!"
Michelangelo kicked the last droid to the ground.
"Let's see if we can find some answers," Leo said, taking the lead down the passageway.
This corridor looked like all the rest, but led to a heavily guarded door at the end.
One of the guards spotted them. "Kraang! Open fire!"
Raphael yelled and ducked into his shell as a laser flew over where his head had been a second ago. "Wait, these Kraang are actually trying to shoot us. What's up with that?"
"Turtles, attack!"
They dashed forward, this time weaving and dodging to avoid the laser blasts coming towards them.
The Kraang fought fiercely, but ultimately, there were not enough of them to guard the door, and one by one, they fell into a pile of metal scraps, their alien brains screaming and scattering away.
Raph pulled the head off of one of the robots and scanned it at the door.
The door admitted the four of them onto a balcony overlooking the main floor of the room.
A console by the door immediately drew Donnie's attention, and he examined a drive plugged into it.
"Secret enemy data?" He said, hacking the console to eject the drive. He took and pocketed the little device. "Don't mind if I do." He then redirected his focus to examining the main room.
It had the same layout as the room at the top of the Worldwide Genome Project building, with a giant vat of mutagen in the center of it and labelled tubes of DNA lining the walls, ready to empty into the mutagen as commanded. A troupe of armed Kraangdroids stood guarding Traag, the Rock giant, as another robot worked at a control panel beside the mutagen.
"Look at the labels," Raph whispered, indicating the DNA tubes. "Bear, jellyfish, shark, lion… they got rid of all the lame animals from last time."
"You mean they kept all the dangerous ones," Donatello realized aloud, a sinking feeling in his gut.
The Kraangdroid readying the mutagen finalized the command, and DNA from all the tanks combined into the mutagen. The robot then filled a bucket with the altered mutagen and brought it over to Traag.
"Ohhhhhhhhh no," Donnie said.
Traag accepted the bucket of mutagen, and all the Kraang surrounding him stepped back, weapons at the ready.
Traag poured the mutagen over himself.
Immediately, the room was filled with the sound of Traag's screaming, the horrible sound of rocks grating together. He stumbled, limbs twisting wrong ways, skin changing color, growing larger, larger, larger, things cracking and sprouting out of his back and chest that shouldn't be there.
Leo looked at Donnie. "The retromutagen."
Donatello produced the vial from his belt. "Brought it."
Leonardo put his attention back on Traag. "We need to do it now, while he's still mutating. He was impossible to beat before. If he finishes mutating with all that DNA…"
Donnie nodded and drew his arm back, aiming at Traag's monstrous form.
Traag fell onto his hands and knees, obscured from their view by the Kraangdroids who surrounded him.
"I can't see him," Donnie said.
"Looks like we're gonna have to fight." Raph jumped down to the first level and struck two robots through their heads before anyone could register his presence.
Leo sighed and shook his head, then leapt down to help.
Donnie clutched the vial, and he and Mikey followed suit.
"There's a lot of bots," Michelangelo observed.
Donnie deflected a laser with a sweep of his bo staff. "Looks like this was an important place, after all."
Leo sliced one's neck. "Donnie, what do you need?"
"A clear path to Traag would be great," The genius responded, spearing another with his naginata.
"Almost there!" Raph called from ahead, having single-handedly fought a path through the Kraang to the center. He did his best to hold them off while Donnie dashed towards him, vial in hand.
Michelangelo attempted to cover Donatello's back from robots closing in. Out of the corner of his eye, he didn't have time to catch one of them raising its blaster to strike him.
"Oof!" The blow stung his plastron and threw him off-balance. He stumbled right into Donnie, taking them both down and sending the vial of retromutagen flying towards Raph, who was still busy focusing on the Kraang.
"Raph! Look out!" Leo cried.
"Huh?" Raph turned his head and spotted the vial shooting towards him. He didn't have time to free his sais from the Kraang and duck.
Leonardo jumped between him and the vial of retromutagen.
Crack.
The world seemed to go in slow-motion as the vial shattered over Leo's shell, splattering retromutagen all over his face and chest.
Leo's pupils turned to pinpricks the moment realization hit him. His skin grew pale and speckled. "Guy-guys…?"
"No," was all Donatello could say. "No. No. Nononononononono."
Michelangelo and Raphael held the Kraang at bay, staring with wide eyes and open mouths.
Leo tried not to look at his hands as webbing grew between his fingers. "Do the best against the Kraang and Foot as you can. I love all of you, okay? Say the same to Sensei for me, will you?"
"No. Leo, don't do this to us," Raph warned. "No. Don't you dare, Leo- Leonardo!"
They could only watch as their brother's form shrunk before them until all that was left was a little speckled turtle, staring up at them with unknowing eyes.
Everything was silent. Even the Kraang seemed shocked into momentary inaction.
It didn't last, though. A moment later, their lasers were trained on the turtles again.
Raph's shoulders shook. He clutched his sais in fists and stared at the ground.
"Leo…" Mikey whimpered.
Donnie scooped the little turtle up as laser fire opened again. "We have to go!"
"I'm not leaving until they pay!" Raph shouted, the growl of rage unmistakable in his voice.
Michelangelo grabbed Raphael's shoulder and looked him in the eye. "I know, bro, but there's only three of us, and if we get captured, Leo doesn't stand a chance!"
Raph gritted his teeth and growled, but his shoulders slumped, and he allowed Mikey to drag him out of the room, Lasers firing at their backs until they were out of sight.
As they ran the way they'd come, Raph couldn't pull his eyes away from the helpless turtle who had been their fearless leader only seconds ago.
"Leo…"
Have a great day, y'all!