Heavy tires rolled over the cracked and weathered black pavement of the street set between the rows of old city buildings. It was a hot summer day, and the delivery truck sent old scraps of newspaper and plastic bags tumbling in its wake as it made its way down the old street set in some dirty and nearly forgotten part of the city. There was a slight high pitched whine of brakes as the truck slowed down, and then it turned into an alleyway. Nestled snugly between to tall, red bricked buildings covered in graffiti, the truck finally came to a stop beside a side door marked 'Deliveries'.
The rumble of the engine cut and stilled as the truck was turned off. The two doors of the cab opened, and two men stepped out of each side. Reaching up to crick his neck, the driver then reached into the cab to pull out a clipboard, tucked it under one arm, and headed towards the door of the building and knocked, waiting a little impatiently. Meanwhile, his partner headed towards the back of the truck to open the doors to the cargo bay. He started reaching in and pulling boxes forward to start unloading them, but had only managed to move a few when his partner called him over. Grumbling under his breath, the man complied, turning away from the truck and towards his partner and the owner of the shop, who was now standing in the doorway with a scowl and arms crossed.
Through the tense argument that ensued, the three humans were so busy pouring over the shipping manifest attached to the clipboard that none of them noticed a shadowy figure slip out of the back of the truck, slink down the shadowy alleyway, and disappear up a nearby fire escape ladder to the rooftops above.
Leo balanced lightly on the roof of the old wooden water tower, breathing in the air deeply. It was a risk, leaving himself so open in the daytime, but he couldn't help himself.
He had to 'see' it for himself it fully to believe it.
Oh gods, he was here! He was finally here! This... this was New York City! After so much, he was actually back in New York!
He couldn't actually see the sights around him of course, but he could sense it with every fiber of his being.
It was as if the city itself was a living organism, humming with an aura like he had never experienced before. The vibrations of countless vehicles rumbling through the streets. The hums of air conditioners and exhaust fans and generators and all the other machinery and motors thrumming from atop buildings. The smells, the sounds, even the very tastes that permeated the air around him.
His eyes may only see darkness, but the whole world around him was lit up so brilliantly with energy and life that it was as if it were painted before him in vivid technicolor.
How had he never noticed this all before?! Back when he had his sight, how had he missed the brilliant undercurrent of energy that lay underneath everything, radiating off the living creatures and flowing up through the buildings?!
It was... it was breathtakingly beautiful.
He stood there for a moment, overwhelmed as he let the life flow of the city wash over and through him.
This... this was New York City!
He had made it back.
He had finally made it back!
The journey here had been difficult, both mentally and physically. It had taken him months. Months of searching and wrong turns and dead ends and close calls. Months of sleeping alone with nobody to watch his shell. Months of trying to figure out routes and transportation without even really knowing where he was half the time. Oh gods, how much easier it would've been if he could've just read a map! It wasn't like he could just walk up and ask for directions from the nearest human. Heck, most of the time, he couldn't even understand the local language spoken in wherever the heck he had managed to end up at the time! He had huddled for weeks on a ship among shipping cargo, traveled through humid and sweaty jungles, been shot at by drug cartels, and dodged what felt like entire armies of Neo-Foot.
But... but somehow... through pure luck and sheer stubbornness... he was here. He had finally made it back!
Leo tried to keep his breathing from hitching as he took in the familiar smells of the city he had grown up in. He wasn't sure if that intense ache in his chest and the churning sensation in his gut was a feeling of elated, overjoyed excitement... or...or fearful dread. Though he looked outwardly calm and still, standing on the tower with a breeze blowing past him, on the inside, so many emotions were building up that he felt like he was going to burst. Or throw up. Maybe both?
He was back.
But was he home?
Because no matter how familiar and welcoming the city felt to him right now, it wouldn't ever be home without his brothers.
And now the moment of truth was at hand. He tried to keep any fear damped down deep inside, but it was hard. What... what would he find, now that he was back?
He had tried several times on his journey to try and call his brothers. Every time he came across a phone, he would carefully trace the number pad, trying to recall from memory where the numbers sat. He would go through and dial all of the phone numbers of family that he remembered, hoping beyond hope that the line would be picked up from the other end, and a familiar and beloved voice would answer.
But they never did.
No matter how many times he tried, and he had tried many, many times, he had only ever gotten a harsh sound dial tone.
The phone lines were disconnected.
And, worse yet, the Neo-Foot started showing up shortly afterwards with almost unerring accuracy every time he tried, hunting him, and he would be forced to flee to escape them, sometimes only by the skin of his teeth.
He hoped that those two events weren't connected. He desperately prayed that the phone lines being dead and the NeoFoot showing up was all just a coincidence, and that his family was safe and whole and well.
He exhaled, and slipped down off the water tower to the building roof below.
There was only one way to find out, and he was finally at the place where he could do so.
It was strange moving along the familiar rooftops that he knew as well as the back of one of his brothers' shells. The streets seemed fairly empty, so he felt safe as he slipped down to street level, trying not to let the emotions welling in his chest get the better of him.
He paused as he passed the fortune teller's shop and heard the sound of electrical buzzing coming from the neon sign in the shop's window, and he couldn't help the small smile that curved the corner of his mouth. The buzz pulsed as the sign shifted back and forth behind the fortune teller's window, and even though he couldn't see it anymore, Leo could almost imagine the neon shape of a hand trading places with the neon eye at rhythmic intervals. Mikey's mind had been blown by that simple sign on their first day venturing out into the world above.
Boy, they had all been so young and innocent back then. They had no way of knowing back then that when they stepped out of the safety of their lair, they were walking right into a world that was so much bigger and more dangerous then they could've ever imagine.
Stepping away from the fortune teller's shop, Leo shifted the pack on his shell and turned into the alleyway that held the manhole cover into the sewers below. He knelt down, and carefully lifted the heavy metal street cover up like he had thousands of times before in what felt like a different lifetime ago. Then, without a moment's hesitation, he slipped down into the hole, and the heavy manhole cover slipped back into place with hardly a sound.
As Leo walked through the tunnels, he tried to ignore the butterflies in his stomach. He had grown up in these tunnels. He was so close.
What would he find when he reached the lair? Would his brothers be in there? It was daytime out, and usually his family was asleep at this time. Would... would he walk into the lair, and find them all sleeping comfortably in their rooms?
Through the darkness of his world, in his mind's eyes he could clearly visualize Mikey curled up in his pile of fluffy blankets and stuffed animals, Donnie snoring softly, face planted on the surface of his desk in his lab, and Raph swaying quietly in his hammock, one leg thrown over the edge. What would he do if that was the case? Would he wake them up, and cause what most likely would be a chaotic but sleepy panic? Or would he let them get their well-deserved day's sleep, and greet them when they woke up? Ha, he could just imagine the look on their faces when they walked out, only to see him sitting at the table, drinking a cup of tea!
He suddenly felt a little pang of sadness as he realized that... well... he supposed he wouldn't be able to see their faces, would he?
But... but at least he could imagine them. And then there would be the hugs and tears and disbelief and utter chaos that his return would cause. And, of course, many of those tears and emotions would be coming from him himself. Oh gods, did he miss them so much! Would... would they be mad and hurt that he had been gone for so long? How would they react to him being blind? He... he hoped desperately that they wouldn't be disappointed with him.
As he grew closer, though, his thoughts quickly shifted course as he began to realize that something was wrong.
The tunnels... this area...
As familiar as it was, there was definitely something different.
Dread began to blossom in his chest, and his pace quickened.
Everything was too cold. Too still. Too... empty.
It didn't feel like the familiar tunnels he had known his whole life. It... it felt lifeless and abandoned.
The overwhelming sense of wrongness quickly changed into a near panic, and he broke out into a dead run, fear licking at his heart.
He had come so far, and he was so close!
They just had to be there!
Please let them be there!
Oh gods, please!
He turned the corner, reached the turnstiles that marked the entrance to his old home, and froze, horrified.
The lair... His childhood home...
No...
NO!
A faint scent of old smoke and burnt soot still hung in the air, even though any fires were obviously long gone. He could sense the collapsed ceiling, the demolished walls, the smashed furniture laying beneath crushed stone piles. From somewhere off near the wreckage of Donnie's lab, he could hear the rhythmic and forlorn sound of water dripping from a broken pipe, the only sounds echoing through the deathly still and destroyed chamber.
The whole place felt cold, lifeless, and abandoned.
His brothers were not here.
No... Please no...
His home was gone.
Leo stood there for a moment, his jaw slack and quivering as he absorbed it all in shocked disbelief. Then, swallowing hard, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and let out a shaky exhale.
Calm. He had to remain calm.
If his brothers needed him, he had to be able to help them.
He needed to remain in control of himself.
Letting his traveling pack slid off his shell, he set it on the ground. Then he turned and carefully stepped over one of the toppled and crushed turnstiles into the destroyed lair, determined to figure out just what happened here.
With walls buckled and whole sections of the ceiling caved in, the whole place was obviously somewhat dangerous and unsteady, and occasionally a piece of small rubble dislodged and clattered down the mountains of debris. As he moved, he traced his fingers against the walls, and under his touch, the stonework felt brittle, cracked and charred.
Just... just what had happened here?
Everything was destroyed. Had a bomb had gone off in here? It definitely seemed like one had.
But... when had this happened? Who had done this?
...
...
And... and...
Oh gods. Who had... who had been in here... when...
If... if any of his brothers had...
What if they were...
Oh gods...
Fear beating in his chest, the first place he instinctively made his way towards was the dojo. It had always been the heart of their lair. It had always been where he could go to find answers. It was where his father most likely was to be found. He needed to get to the dojo.
It was kind of hard to get in, as several beams had fallen across the doorway, but, pressing his shell firmly against one of the beams, he finally he managed to push it out of the way. It crashed against the floor with a loud thud, raising a small cloud of sooty dust and sending several bits of debris rolling. The gap it left was a bit tight, but he could slip in with a little work.
And then, standing in what had once been the Hamato Family dojo, he instantly sensed everything that was empty and lifeless in this room, and he felt his heart break a little.
Uprooted, smashed across the floor, lay the tree that had once dominated the dojo.
The beautiful tree that had always been there, watching over Leo and his brothers as they grew up, played, trained, and fought under its branches. The tree that Master Splinter had so lovingly tended for so many years.
Now it was dead, leafless, and bare, laying among the ruins of the dojo like a heart that had been ripped out.
Leo felt as if he were mourning an old, dear friend as he stepped up to the broken and charred wood and ran his hand over the dead, peeling bark.
A single tear began to streak down his now-soot smuged face, but then he paused, suddenly sensing something.
He moved around the broken trunk of the tree, searching and feeling carefully, and then, at last, he found it.
He quickly pulled out a knife, and, every so carefully, cut off one of the smallest branches, cradling it closely.
The branch cutting he held in his hands was still flexible and pliant. It was still green.
Even amidst the ruins and ash, there was still a spark of life left. There... there was hope yet.
Leo found a piece of ruined tapestry nearby and ripped it into a strip, and soaked it with water from the waterskin on his belt, before wrapping the small stick up in it.
He knew that if he nurtured the cutting carefully, it could grow roots, and, planted in the right spot, eventually grow into a whole new tree.
He gave a shudder, wiped his face, and then he turned away. He could grieve for his lost childhood home later.
Right now, he needed to keep calm and his mind clear. He needed to keep looking. He had to focus on finding out what happened here.
He made his way back out through the broken kitchen and started feeling around the broken ruins, trying to find any clues.
The living room, the circular indent in the center of the room, was a lost cause. The spot where he had spent hours sitting cross-legged in front of the TV, watching Space Heroes, was now buried under tons of rubble.
And Donnie's lab... it had once a place full of energy and brilliance, where dozens of machines hummed as his brother brought brilliant inventions to life. Now both of the doors lay hanging crooked on broken tracks, and the room was filled with wet mold and algae, one of the large broken pipes near the ceiling creating a small stream of water that had long since turned the floor into a filthy, stagnant pool.
He physically winced when he reached the bedrooms in the back. His brothers' rooms felt cold and empty now. Once they had been sanctuaries, infused with the very soul and personality of their owner. Now they were just broken and empty stone rooms, holding none of the warmth Leo had known to be in them his whole life.
But... instead of giving into despair, as he moved, Leo remembered what the Ancient One had taught him. He instead patiently listened and felt and felt and sensed, and in his mind's eye, he began to see more then what was right in front of him.
And he began to feel hope.
True, the bedrooms were empty. The dojo was empty. The lab was empty.
But the bedrooms were empty of the personal effects he knew his brothers treasured. The wall in the dojo which once held the family's collection of weapons and other Hamato heirlooms was now bare. The photo albums once hidden in cupboards were gone. Donnie's lab was bereft of its computers and electronics.
Everywhere, he found small signs that somebody, or somebodies, had come back afterwards to try and salvage some semblance of what had made this home.
And then, finally, he reached his old bedroom. The door was missing, blown off its hinges most likely. Wondering just how bad it was in there, considering the state of the rest of the lair, he stepped in, and immediately froze in the doorway.
He stood there quietly for a long moment, one hand resting gently on the door frame.
Then he swallowed hard, breathed out slowly, and carefully took a step inside.
Compared to the state of the rest of the lair, this room was almost pristine. At some point, somebody had completely cleared out all the debris and carefully scrubbed clean the walls and floor, removing the dust and soot and leaving the room in an almost livable state. A faint, faded smell of fresh paint on the walls still lingered in the air. None of his old possessions were still in there, as far as he could tell. His bed, desk, bookshelves, all that was gone. The only piece of furniture he could sense in the room was some sort of small wooden table set against the back wall.
A... a shrine.
To honor the dead.
Slowly, reverently, he moved across his old room, each quiet footstep carefully placed and deliberately drawing him closer, until finally he stopped in front of the short, sturdy table draped in a thick, soft cloth. He stood there quietly for a moment, and then, finally, he carefully knelt down onto the floor before it.
Hesitantly, he lifted one hand, let it hover uncertainly for a moment, then reached out to continue exploring the shrine, gently touching the items placed lovingly on the surface.
There were a couple of candles set on the surface, now cool to the touch but the crispy burnt wicks and hard drips of wax frozen on the sides showed that they had been lit at multiple points in time.
Leo absently traced the edge of the porcelain tea cup sitting between the candles. He... he quickly recognized this cup by touch, even if he couldn't see it. Each chip and imperfection... He knew them by heart. This was one of his favorite teacups, one he had used almost every morning.
He picked it up and quickly noticed that there was still a bit of cold liquid pooled in the bottom of the cup, jasmine tea, from the smell of it. Leo guessed that the cup had originally been full, and most of the liquid had evaporated over time.
Next to the tea cup was an old, stale piece of what Leo guessed had once been a slice of pizza, sitting on a small plate. He could smell green peppers and rather rancid black olives, and surmised that it had once been a veggie pizza.
Veggie pizza had always been his favorite...
He exhaled shakily, closing his eyes in relief.
It was rather disgusting at this point, but Leo was never more glad to find a moldy old piece of pizza in his life. He instantly realized just what this meant.
Somebody had been here very recently. Probably, at most, a week or two ago.
He turned his attention to the other item on the shrine. In the center was a fairly large wooden figurine with a narrow strip of silk draped over it.
Curious, he picked up the wooden figurine and carefully ran his fingers lightly over it, trying to figure it out. It was a bit of an artistic style, but Leo could make out what seemed to be a rough shape of a humanoid turtle kneeling while holding twin sword before it. It seemed to be hand carved, with obviously a lot of care and love put into its creation.
With a sad, wistful smile, Leo traced its curves and edges. Who had made it? All three of his brothers were capable of making beautiful things when they wanted. He wished desperately that he could see what it looked like.
He instead memorized it by touch, and burned every detail into his mind's eye, until it felt like he could truly see it, even if it were just in his imagination. He spent a long moment just holding the figurine in his hands quietly. Then, exhaling shakily, he reached up and rubbed his hand over his misty, sightless eyes, before reaching out and gently setting it back down in its place.
He turned his attention to the strip of silk cloth that had been draped over the figurine, which he now held in his hands. He rubbed the soft fabric carefully between two fingers, noting the two holes cut into it.
A mask.
He couldn't actually see it, of course, so he couldn't tell what color it was, but it was probably safe to assume...
Well, he would just have to trust that it wasn't a bright pink flower print.
He reached up to tie the mask around his face.
Sitting back, he closed his eyes and just breathed for a little bit, concentrating on the feeling of the cool cloth on his face. It... it felt good. Like a piece of himself clicked back in place.
He was Leonardo.
He was back.
And he would find his brothers.
Unseeing eyes snapped back open behind the mask, and Leo stood up resolutely, turned away from the shrine and stepped out of the room. He made his way back to the entrance of the destroyed lair, scooping up his traveling back on the way and throwing it back over his shell. There was a new determination in his steps.
True, the lair had been destroyed. But in those ruins, he found hope.
There had only been one shrine.
Somebody had come back to their old home, perhaps multiple times since the collapse, but they had only set up one single shrine.
Because, as far as they knew, they had only lost one brother.
Well, guess what? That brother was no longer lost.
As he left the ruins of their old home behind him, Leo reached up and touched the hilt of the katana he had taken off a dead Neo-Foot on his journey, which now strapped across his shell.
He was going to find his brothers.
And if even a single scale on any of them had been harmed, then whoever did this had better start praying, because there would be hell to pay!