Author's note: Hi everyone. I have something to say. Today is my last update… WHAT NO I'm kidding. I'm not abandoning this fic. I don't have writer's block too. It's just… when other authors said their computer broke, I was like really? But things happened, and mine just broke T_T. I'm sorry I had a doubt in you before. I experienced it myself and it totally sucks since I have to buy a new one. I'm poor… Soooo I use my mobile to finish writing it. This chapter is quite important so I don't want to half-bake it. Sorry it took so long.

To those who played the game, winter is coming. Winter is finally coming. Winter is really, really coming and I mean it this time. I'm really excited for this chapter. It's difficult to pull it all out. Oh, did I say that winter is literally coming?

To those who didn't play LOU, you won't miss anything. I'll make sure you don't miss anything and enjoy this story. Just remember, winter is coming. Pun intended.

On the side note, I fixed the name of chapters. Because I live in the country that has only 2 seasons (3 if you count winter. But we have winter like 3 days, 2 weeks top so...), I made a mistake by putting summer before fall lol. Now fixed!


The man walked to the only source of light on the first floor. The night was cool, and he was in the mood for company.

"Hey, have a light?"

Another man glanced at him briefly before taking it out of his shirt pocket, carefully not to disturb a strap of a rifle on his chest, and giving it to him.

"Here,"

"Thanks. It's freaking cold, man. Guess snow will fall soon. What did you get from the tourists?"

The man lit the cigarette and returned the light. The second man shrugged.

"Not much. They got some medical items but no foods. The man had nice jacket, though." He sneered since his leader got that damn jacket, not him.

"Looks like the news is spreading to the east. They keep coming here and want to join the fucking Fireflies. So dumb. Good for us. More tourists to come."

They both chuckled at the misfortune of the said family like they lived so far away from where god could not punish them. Suddenly the fire in the bin was gone, removing all the light on this floor. They whipped their heads around. There was no wind and the night was quiet. It was suspicious if they were under attack. After all, the army retreated months ago and Fireflies decided to move their headquarter somewhere else since they had internal conflict, leaving the city to the hands of wild hunters. Since then, no one dared to mess with them.

But they didn't know what hit them next. The first man didn't prepare himself for a piece of hardwood that connected to the side of his head.

"-the fuck!?" The second man backed away when he heard the impact. They were under attack indeed, but from who? There was no gunshots, no shouts, just his own ragged breathes.

He caught a glimpse of a pair of white eyes. It was all cold white without pupils like the dead man's eyes. Did the reaper usually has glowing white eyes? He couldn't see anything else because it was dark, so he didn't see the nunchucks flying toward him.

The attacker didn't blink at all, staring at him with the cold eyes until the man fell to the ground.

"Good night," He whispered and stood for a moment before rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"You know, I wanna say something like that for a long time. Not that I don't have many chances to beat bad guys but usually we're in a hurry. Like we have to beat your guys fast and disappear before humans can see us. But don't think I'll go mercy on you. I'll hit you until you turn into jelly and never rise on your feet again. Yeah, I can do that. I'm that good."

"Mikey, he's already out cold." Another pair of white eyes silently emerged from the darkness in front of him, but Mikey didn't even flinch. He was used to Leo's immediate presence. Months of staying with Leo made that to him.

"Oh right." He lifted nunchucks up high and then...

Whack!

"There. I feel better now."

The second hit probably caused an ugly concussion to the man. Maybe he deserved it. Leo looked at the human on the floor one last time and just shook his head before gestured Mikey back to the window. He followed closely and once again they disappeared into the curtain of the night like when they were the guardian of New York city.

The punishment was delivered, in any form possible.


Finally, they arrived at the top floor of the tall building, their temporary shelter. Leo glanced down at the dead city below. It was dark, no electricity, no lights, but from time to time he could hear a sound of gunshot somewhere in the dark city. He would never ever get used to it.

Leo removed his cloak, lit the small candle, and flipped the useless portal device in his hand. He thought about their encounter with the first Kraang today. Leo felt something wasn't right. Even in the vulnerable state, the Kraang held the important information from them. He didn't know their purpose yet, and why they wanted to send the mysterious subject to Earth? He must know this. They saved Earth more than once and he felt he should continue this habit.

But now, the thought about Kraang was pushed aside, Mikey came first.

He was surprised that his little brother timidly asked him to find those hunters. Knowing they couldn't pull the stunt like they did in their New York, Leo promised he would do as much as possible. It wasn't the best time to save the city (It's called Denver?) from the hunters, they still had to find the special portal to go back home, and there were only two of them. But he couldn't bear seeing the guilt all over Mikey's feature. He wanted to say that it wasn't Mikey's fault that the human family was killed. He knew Mikey told him before that it wasn't his fault that Henry and Sam died. But he couldn't say it to him, because he couldn't bring himself to believe it wasn't his fault, so he wouldn't drag Mikey to the same path. If anything helped him to wash away the guilt, he would definitely do it.

Still looking down to the city below, Mikey absently scratched the bite scar on his arm. This kind of action didn't escape Leo's eyes. He was worried, but there was nothing he could do. Mikey obviously didn't want to talk about it. Surely a lot of things were going on inside his little brother's mind.

But luckily he was a ninja, and diversion was one of ninja specialties.

"How do you do that?" Leo turned to ask his little brother. Mikey turned to look at him and tilted his head.

"What? Do what? You gotta be specific, bro."

Leo smiled, running his thick fingers over his head. "I mean the Kraang. It's like you have Kraang detector in your head."

"Ah, that," Mikey said smugly. "In different dimension, Mikey rules."

Leo moved to sit next to him and shook his head lightly. "I'm serious. How did you do that?"

Mikey felt special because this wasn't something Leo could do and he was proud of himself. He spread his arms wide and closed his eyes. "You have to open your mind, dude. Then you'll hear all the voices around yourself. I happened to find someone sounds very Kraang-y, that's all." Mikey opened his eyes, nudged his big brother, and started to grin. "Why don't you let me handle it? You gotta let me lead for once in your life."

Leo frowned at him. "This is not Dimension X, so no. I'm a leader here."

Mikey immediately pouted. "Oh Leo, you-"

Suddenly the gunshot from the ground below interrupted them. Leo whipped his head to that direction, only to notice that they were shooting far away from them. It was almost midnight judging by the position of the moon but they still didn't stop killing. He sighed, squeezing his eyes shut. But when he turned to Mikey, it was like his little brother turned into a scared puppy. His imaginary puppy ears flattened against his head, tail looped under his shell, totally terrified.

Somehow Leo wanted to jump off and strangled that bastard who fired.

"Oh no," Mikey whispered as if he was afraid the shooter that was half a mile away from him would hear. "They're shooting again."

"Spreading a false news to lure people here, such a crooked strategy." Leo scorned. "They'd do anything just to survive one more day."

The sound of gunshot ended, but Mikey's wide eyes still fixed on the ground below. Leo patted his little brother's shoulder and rubbed his arm, giving a little comfort.

"We'll help as much as we can."

"I know..."

The only thing Leo could do was to pull Mikey closed to his chest, letting him seek for warmth. He mumbled quietly. "Just go to sleep. We have to reach the university tomorrow morning."


It was a story of the man who was braver than a lion and the man who resembled god...

Hah! That's really cool introduction, he thought.

Mikey perked up from the old tale book he found. He wanted to think about his journey like that. A tale from the fantasy book. Donnie once said their lives couldn't join the normal society because they were too special. It wasn't far from the fact, actually. He didn't mind living in the sewers. He admitted that the human school was awesome but he wouldn't trade it for his brothers. He couldn't live without family.

It was a story of the man who was braver than a lion and the man who resembled god going to the university...

Now that's silly even to my standard, Mikey shrugged and dropped the book.

They were in front of the entrance of the abandoned university, far from the sound of gunshot in the city. It was peaceful, a bit isolated, and sheltered with rusted buses. The Kraang built the junk wall to prevent the university from the noisy human. As they walked through the entrance, Mikey noticed that the university was much, much larger than April's school. There were several tall glass buildings with strange shapes. The sign on the nearest building told him that it was Computer Science department.

He saw that and thought. No wonder why the Kraang likes this place.

Leo was again naturally quiet, being alert but kept his calm exterior, even his footsteps were silent. Mikey knew they were in foreign area again but being quiet wasn't his style, so he started the conversation.

"You know, we're about the age to go to university like normal teenagers. This is so cool! We were in April's high school before and now we're going straight to university."

Normally, Leo would ignore him, but this time Mikey got a reply. "Yeah, to hunt some Kraang." Leo sighed as he knew that he was supposed to chastise his brother for being loud, but he couldn't help spoiling his little brother. They had been through a lot last night. "Actually, we're at the age that normal human separates from their parents. Becoming independent, I think."

"Oh..." Mikey looked astonished at that statement. "But I wanna stay with Splinter!"

Leo paused at the outburst and smiled. "Of course. Our lives are different from humans so don't worry, we'll stay with sensei."

He earned a sigh of relief from his little brother. A good sign. He wondered when will Mikey ever grow up…

It was eerily quiet on the campus. No human so far. Perhaps the Kraang did the best to prevent anyone from trespassing. But there were too many buildings. The university was large and it would take a day to cover all area. Leo glanced at the trees, looking for the threat or maybe a trap. But the Kraang they met was true on his word. This place was entirely abandoned.

"I wonder what the Kraang's trying to do. What's their subject? They want to bring the subject to Earth so it must be very important. Or they want to spread the zombie virus on Earth?"

Mikey put his hands behind his head and shrugged. "Dunno, dude. But Kraang don't want empty world like this. They at least want slaves."

Leo nodded. "That's true. Either way, we need to know about their experiments."

Mikey tilted his head. "Isn't finding the way home difficult enough?"

"It is. But we can't let the virus infect Earth too. We have to make sure whatever they plan doesn't work."

Mikey wristlet at the beautiful sight when they entered the wide space in the middle of the campus. Fallen leaves covered every inch of the ground, the trees stood tall with dry and vacant branches. There was one thing that was out of place, though. Standing here, they could see the familiar bright purple color on the building on the left side.

"I don't need to use my Kraang radar to know that building is the one we're looking for."

Leo gasped. "How can they paint it in purple? No wait, where did they get the paint?"

"Who cares if they dumped mutagen on it. Let's go! Oh wait, I forgot. We have to go in quietly." Mikey was tiptoeing into the building.

"Good to know you've learned." Leo chuckled in a good nature, but that didn't stop Mikey from pouting.

The light came down from the broken dome roof, allowing them to see cloudy atmosphere outside. It was getting colder too. Mikey kept his arms under the cloak, seeking for little warm. He glanced to the roof and found that part of it collapsed long time ago, leaving a lot of broken concrete with some rebars sticking out in the middle of the first floor. Fortunately, there was no obstacle blocking on the curved stairs and they could reach to the top without problem. As soon as they entered the building, they finally found a clue about their enemy. A stack of papers was neatly placed on the decayed table near the entrance. It seemed out of place to see the perfect white papers in the middle of apocalypse.

"Wow, lots of papers here. Because it's university?" Mikey looked over the papers; they were printed, not written. Definitely from the Kraang.

"Well, it's the place that teenagers come to study. But I don't think the Kraang was here for studying." Leo didn't hesitate to pick some of them and begin to read. He skimmed over papers. "It looks like these are the results of some experiments."

"Definitely D's favorite place." Mikey looked to find another clue. There was some strange machine but nothing looked like the Kraang blender. He even went under the table but found no mutagen or power cell.

Something squeaked loudly in the cage under the table.

Shuriken already slipped in Leo's fingers, ready to throw. Mikey paused but since he was close he could see the creature. Then he turned to Leo and shook his head, raising a question from his big brother. Mikey then reached out to open the cage, letting a shadow ran past him quickly to the only entrance. There were two or three small shadows ran after it. Before Leo could react, the natural light revealed what they were. Three small mammals stopped at the outside, looking at the turtles with curiosity.

"Monkey?" Leo gasped. "What are they doing here?"

"Hello! I'm Michelangelo!" Mikey waved his hand, but it scared them even more. They finally ran away. "Aww, don't be shy."

Leo blinked, then he got down to see the cage. The handwriting sign could be seen on it, 'Monkey', it said. There were many empty cages under and behind the table. All of them had an animal name, 'Bird', 'Dog', 'Rat', and the last one on the right had 'Turtle' written on it. Leo shuddered and moved to inspect it. The cage was too small for a mutant, which was good news because he couldn't bear a thought of the Kraang trying to experiment with his brothers. It seemed that they collected the wild animals, including normal turtles, as samples. Leo figured that the papers in front of him may hold some answers. It took a few moments to find what he was looking for.

"So they did the experiments on them."

"Huh?" Mikey who was still waving at the group of wild monkeys turned to him.

"The results are written here. Monkeys are infected."

"WHAT!?"

"...But apparently they become a host as they show no aggressive condition."

The more he knew about it, the more he felt sick about the Kraang. This was only one small side of what they were doing here and he started to feel that he didn't want to know the rest. His grip wriggled the paper with anger. This was very, very wrong.

Mikey slapped his hand on his forehead as if he just remembered something very important like turning off the stove before going out.

"Leo… does it mean…"

"Hmm?"

"I'm a monkey?"

"...I fail to see how you can come up with that conclusion." Leo deadpanned.

"Just look at me! I got bitten by ugly giant mushroom but I don't turn into one of them. I'm a monkey now!" Mikey exclaimed loudly with a little overdramatic face. Leo chuckled and shook his head.

"For the record, you're still a turtle and if you put it that way then you are now the host."

Apparently, Mikey was super okay with it. Well, anything was great as long as he could walk on his own unlike those clickers. He smirked, arms crossed loosely. "Wow, I know I'm cool, but I don't know that I'll be super duper cool like this. Woo!"

Leo sighed. "I'll have Donnie check on you when we go back. We don't know if being the host has some effects on you."

"Don't worry, bro. I have a good feeling that we'll find our ticket in here. We'll get back home in no time!"

"That's good." Leo did a final check, picking some papers about the host and gesturing his little brother to follow. They still had more area to find the secret lab. As they walked up the stairs, Mikey suddenly asked him.

"So our honeymoon will end soon?"

Leo thought he should stop him from talking, but curiosity won over. "Honeymoon?"

Mikey laughed. "Aww, Leo. Don't be like that! It's our honeymoon, remember? It's a total disaster, I know. But it's still our first honeymoon."

Leo contemplated for a moment before looking down at the paper in his hand, wondering out loud. "What do people do on honeymoon anyway?"

"I bet there're a lot of pizza."

"...you have no idea, do you?"

"People gotta eat at some point."

"..."

"What do people do on honeymoon?

"That's my question."

"I saw on the TV. They mostly stay in the room. But doing what? Watching TV together?"

"I guess." Leo shrugged nonchalantly, still in the reading mode.

Mikey hooked his hands behind his head, still in playful mode. "Tell me what you'd do if you go with Miwa."

Leo suddenly coughed, choking on his own saliva. "MIKEY!"

"Hey, I didn't ask for your love life because you said you don't have one. I just ask what would you do if you have a chance. It's opinion, not fact, right? I'm still learning, bro. I know in TV they kiss, I know bits and pieces but not the entire chunk. Help me please?"

Leo glared at him before turning his head away and continued walking. "Not a time and place, Mikey."

Mikey just shrugged. Several months staying with Leo made him get used to this 'party pooper' side. He just wanted to tease him about his little crush but so far Leo hadn't said a single word about her. It was fun to see him fluttered every time Mikey brought it up, to say at least.

"-wait until we go to the beach first."

"Huh?" It took a few moment and a sly grin from his big brother before he realized the most important mission. Mikey widened his eyes and laughed. "Aww! I completely forget about our trip! I can't believe I forget about our secret trip! It's never too late to plan the trip, bro. Hmm… if we get back to Earth today I'll look it up and…"

Leo just shook his head and let Mikey babbling about awesome beach and how turtles got tanned. He shook his head lightly at his little brother's silliness.

Leo flipped paper to find more information. So far he knew that the Kraang got helps from Fireflies to capture the wild animal and did some sort of experiments on them. His questions remained: what's the Kraang trying to do here? Why did they do the experiments on animals not human? Did they try to spread the disease, or how to cure it? As far as he knew, Kraang could get infected. Maybe Fireflies and the Kraang worked together to find the cure, and the subject was probably one of the animals that were a successful experiment so the Kraang wanted to bring it to Earth.

Fireflies might not like that idea. If the Kraang takes the subject back, they wouldn't be able to find the cure so they released it. They betrayed the Kraang… Leo scratched his chin. It's just my own assumption. I need more info to confirm it…

His eyes caught the text on the next page, he read. 'The host reaches the unstable state after being infected and died within 3-5 days...'

Leo turned pale.

"Leo?"

He didn't even hear Mikey who was confused why he stopped walking. His feet were rooted to the floor, completely frozen.

"What did you find, bro?" Mikey raised his eye ridge and grabbed his shoulder. Leo visibly flinched, quickly put papers behind his shell.

"I-I-" Mikey looked at him suspiciously, and oh god he couldn't lie to Mikey. This turtle knew every time he tried to hide his snacks in his bedroom. But he couldn't let him know this, not this. His own sanity depended on it.

"I… read it and don't really understand big words, that's all."

Mikey stared at him.

Leo kept his shaky hands behind his shell. He sweated even if it began to get cold. He tried not to blink too much. It was partial truth, he wanted more time to read and understand it. Finally, Mikey seemed to buy it. He patted his shoulder with sympathy.

"I know the feeling. That's what happen every time I talk to D. But I'm lucky that I'm genius."

Mikey grinned before taking another step to get ahead of him. Leo gulped. He waited until Mikey was distracted by the plant or small animals such as shiny bug on the handrail before reading the paper again.

'-reaches the unstable state after being infected and died within 3-5 days. The first symptom is the skin on the limbs such as hands will start to die and become rotten, following the loss of hearing and sight-'

He skimmed to the end of paper.

'-However, the host does not show aggressive side as it slowly dies within a few days after the first symptom appears-'

Leo turned the paper and kept reading. Mikey left him in peace, assuming he was concentrating on reading big words. Leo was trying so hard to find where they mentioned the cure, but the experiments ended with the fail results, all samples died.

That's why the cages are empty, he thought, and those monkeys probably have a few days left.

Leo bit his lip. His brain was working over time.

No, no, no. Mikey got bitten last month, so he's fine. He's not the host. It's almost two months now. He's fine… It's not happening…

"Umm, Leo?"

My heart can't take it anymore.

"Leo? We have some troubles, bro."

It took several minutes before he heard Mikey called him. "Huh?"

They reached the fourth floor finally. There were Kraang's machines along with the strange tube. He turned around to find mutagen or power cell but there was none. But when he followed Mikey's gaze he found the group of same monkeys they released downstair were trying to open the door that was blocked by chairs. The door rattled, risking the chairs to fall apart.

"No, no, no, no, nooo! Bad monkeys!" Mikey tried to scare them away but he failed. The monkeys didn't seem to hear or see him at all.

The loss of hearing and sight, Leo thought bitterly. They probably just enter the second state.

Mikey didn't want to get close to them because the door was shaking every time the monkeys scratched on it. It was like something trying to break free.

"Leo… there's something in there." Mikey took a step back carefully, eyes wide. "A trap?"

Leo gritted his teeth and drew the katana. He would think about the results in the paper later. "The Kraang lied to us. It's a trap."

"Maybe it's not a trap. Maybe they lock a cow in there for the experiment like monkeys..." Mikey whispered, preparing the nunchucks.

"I wish it's just a cow."

A squeak sound from the monkeys made something, or someone, behind the door getting mad. The monkeys were just panicked and blindly grabbed the chair. Before they could stop them, the door broke, and the floor turned into a chaos. The army of Kraang droids ran out of the door and attacked everything near them. Mikey jumped on the table, avoiding the stampede, while Leo hid behind the pillar.

They were used to get laser shot from the Kraang, but they hadn't thought one day the Kraang would attack them by their teeth. Because it wasn't very effective, right? The pink alien was small, short, and their small teeth (they had one?) were in the stomach. But Mikey screamed anyway when the Kraang in the droid's stomach was so desperate to bite him.

"AHHHHH! ZOMBIE KRAANG!" Mikey kicked it hard enough to send it flying out of the droid.

Leo glanced at the door. The Kraang kept running out like there was no tomorrow. Maybe there were a hundred of them inside. This wasn't good. "RUN!"

"AHH! THERE'RE TOO MANY!" Mikey ran to the stairs. Leo followed him.

"Get back to the ground!"

Mikey wasted no time to slide down on the curved handrail. Leo stayed behind to make sure they were safe. His brain quickly added more questions: the Kraang did the experiment on themselves? Why? No, wait, they look a bit different…

He took a look at the droid in front of him. They were in silver shape, a little blue neon light under its skin.

It's not the Kraang droid. It's-

"LEO!"

His world spun when three droids hit him from the side, taking him off balance. He slashed and kicked them but they were persistent. One of them took his leg by surprise, and suddenly they pushed him over the edge.

The last thing he heard was the Kraang's howl when they were falling down with him.


It felt like all things went wrong every time they entered the Kraang's lab.

Since the beginning, their lives were in some kind of horror movie. The first time they went into Kraang's lab, Mikey got bitten by stalker. And the second time…

The scene played in slow motion as Mikey turned to find his big brother, only to see the Kraang droids tackled him and pushed him over the edge. Mikey tried to ran after him but he was too late. Leo fell from the stairs with the droids. Mikey gasped and released Kusarigama as fast as he could, throwing the chain to help Leo. But he could only catch the droid's leg that was in his way, clinging on Leo's limbs. He couldn't slow them down either as the droid's leg snapped in two pieces.

Then he realized a small mistake could take away his own brother's life.

Falling from the fourth floor, the sickening impact sound followed by Leo's scream brought him back to reality. He left everything behind and jumped off with the grappling hook, ignoring the remaining Kraang droids behind.

"LEO! Leo!"

Mikey almost stepped on the Kraang droids that lied still on the floor. Some of them were killed on the impact or getting impaled by rebar.

Leo didn't response. He was lying on his side in the middle of debris, blood bubbling from his mouth, eyes wide and mouth opened. He was supposed to land on his shell so he wouldn't get hurt badly from the impact, but he failed. Mikey skidded over and quickly got down to him, relieved to see Leo blinked at him. But only for a short moment.

His big brother gasped, trying to breathe.

"Mikey," Leo panted. "I'm okay."

An instant auto-reply was, "NO YOU'RE NOT! You're far from okay! Stop saying you're okay! You're not okay!"

"No, I'm-" Leo coughed. He didn't move to get up at all. Mikey thought because he was in pain. "I'm not bitten."

Oh. That sounded okay-ish but…

Okay, Leo's still alive, that's good, right? He's just got hurt. Nothing I can't fix, right? Shell, he survived throwing through the window before, this is nothing, right? Mikey was on the edge of a panicking attack as he squeezed Leo's hand. His brother's response was too slow for his liking. Leo was never slow. He was their leader and the best ninja, but how could he fail to protect himself from three opponents. They fought a hundred of foot bots before, three enemies were nothing compared to them.

What's happening? Was he distracted like before? Or…

Oh right.

Mikey turned to look at other Kraangs that lied around him. They squirmed, trying to get up but rebar locked them in place.

He avoided getting bitten from them, so he failed to protect himself.

Mikey gulped. Then he turned to Leo and put his hands under his arm.

"Okay, okay, that's good to know. Now let's get out of here."

But when he tried to pull him up, Leo screamed again. Mikey almost dropped him but kept a firm grip on his arm.

"Leo!?"

Then he saw it.

The rebar that stuck out of the concrete impaled him on his side. He didn't know how long it was, but probably long enough to tear their internal organ. Half of it still stayed inside him, and oh nonono too much blood...

This time it was Leo who squeezed his arm.

"Help me up..." Leo spoke through gritted teeth. "...slowly."

Mikey's arms felt like a jelly. His energy was drained after he saw the wound. How can Leo survive this? How is he going to survive this? How-

Leo sensed his fear but he could only tighten his iron grip and clung to him, using him as a crutch. Good thing that Mikey was frozen like a statue. But he was too weak to stand on his own.

Thud!

The katana dug deep on the ground. Leo threw his weight on it to keep balance and stared at his little brother fiercely, indignantly. His left hand held on his right side where the rebar pierced through him to stop the bleeding. The action snapped Mikey out of his shock and he looked at Leo with wide eyes.

"Mikey," Leo breathed. How he could stay intimidated and calm even if he was bleeding was beyond his understanding. "Stop looking like that. I'm-I'm fine."

"B-But"

"I can walk..." Leo glared at him so he shut up. "Let's… get out of here..."

He hated it when Leo lied to him, and he did it twice! But Mikey had no other options than helping him to stand.

"You can?" Mikey's tone was a little higher than usual.

Leo shut his eyes for a few moments. "Yes… just… give me a minute."

"Umm..."

He wanted to say they didn't have a minute because infected Kraangs were coming to them. Fast. It was unfortunate that the brainy monster still remembered how to use stairs. Mikey looked up to see them and moved to support Leo, leading them both to the door. He didn't hear any protests so it probably was okay.

With one hand, he couldn't use nunchucks, but he wouldn't let them think he was an easy prey. He must show his brother that he could protect them. Mikey quickly scanned the ground and kicked the remained katana in the air, grabbing it with his free hand. Leo couldn't scold him for not being respectful to weapon as long as he didn't see it.

"Okay, we're good. Let's get out of here." He heard Leo grunted. Well, any noise from Leo was now welcomed. It meant he was alive. Mikey chuckled weakly. "Next time remind me not to step into the Kraang's lab again. Man, we never waltz out of their building."

One Kraang droid fell from the second floor in front of them, making Mikey flinch. The droid crawled slowly to him. Suddenly he felt the fire burst inside of him. If it wasn't because of Kraang, Leo wouldn't get hurt… Mikey slashed it using Leo's katana and kicked it away with anger.

"Serve you right for messing with turtles!" Mikey hissed, then he turned his head to Leo. "Hey, did you see my move? I'm getting better at katana..."

But Leo didn't answer, his head lolled on his shoulder with eyes close.

"Leo?"

Nonono it's not happening it's not happening

"No..." Mikey quickly laid him back on the ground and checked his heartbeat. It was still there, and he was breathing. But he was finally unconscious; his body shut down from the pain. Mikey just noticed his head was also bleeding. His hands fell freely on his side, revealing the blood that seeping out of the wound.

He knew he shouldn't, but he shook Leo a few times.

"Leo, wake up! You gotta tell me what to do!"

No response. It looked like he was just sleeping, but the whole sleeping thing reminded him of Northampton. Leo was in a coma for months. But that time he had his family beside him, but now...

The Kraang droids were creeping behind him. He had to make a decision now. Leo told him to get out of this place and he had to follow that order. Mikey kneeled down and took his cloak off, switching his backpack on the front, getting Leo on his back. He sucked in his breath and let it out. It was so cold that he could see his own breath.

"You have a nerve to call me chubby when you weigh a ton." Mikey huffed. Somehow he hoped Leo would wake up to smack him but nothing happened. Leo was heavy, he never knew Leo's weight as he never carried anyone before. Usually, it was him who got carried back to the lair.

The lair...

Mikey took Leo on his back and tried to run. But he found himself moving so slow. Mikey mentally cursed for his small frame compared to his brothers. He saw Leo and Raph took their turn for piggy back ride without problem.

Shell, Raph even ran with Leo on his back, why can't I do the same?

Mikey gritted his teeth and took another step. It was heavy; the weight of his big brother was dragging him. He couldn't even lift Leo's feet from the ground. But he wouldn't stop, taking a step repeatedly until he reached the door.

He almost fell again but balanced himself quickly. He couldn't drop Leo. Never. When he raised his head again, he found the emptiness greeted him. The lonely campus. He didn't know which way to go. He had to move soon since the infected Kraang was moaning behind the door and they would come out eventually. Something inside him twisted and he burst out before he could stop himself.

"RAPH!"

He received no replies, of course. It was silly. Raph wouldn't conveniently be here to help him, but it was logical thing to do, at least to him.

"Donnie! Dad! Anybody!"

He was turning back and forth like a lost puppy that was trying to find its owner. No one was here, but his heart refused to believe it.

No one's here… I'm on my own...

A single tear slid down from his bright blue eyes. Followed by another one, and another one, until it formed a steady stream down on his cheek, releasing the sorrow that had been held for all the time. Then he quickly shook his head.

I can't give up… not yet…

Leo's not dead. He's just taking a nap. I just have to wait...

So Mikey took a tentative but firm step as he carried Leo on his back. The warmth from Leo's body soothed his mind. He just hoped Leo would wake up again.

The first snow fell, but his mind was concerned about his brother so he didn't even notice it until some time later.