"Stand guard here." Karai barked out orders to her personal Foot guard, who were currently dressed in plain street clothes. She stood with April and Casey deep in the sewers, close to the entrance leading to their new lair. "Keep in constant contact with the rest of the team, and alert me immediately if the Tengu Shredder or any NeoFoot anywhere are spotted by our scouts. "
"Of course, Mistress Karai." the disguised but still very dangerous ninjas all bows, and moved out to take positions at the entrance of the sewer tunnel.
Karai exhaled, watching them go. Would they be enough? Would all of her forces be able to protect her brothers?
"Thanks for coming over on such short notice, Karai." April said absently, typing in the numerous passphrases and accessed the biometric security measures now in place in order to enter the turtle's lair. Due to the current situation, just activating the secret door to the sewer entrance was basically a fifty step process. Donnie, of course, never did things in half measures.
A hidden panel opened up on the wall, revealing a black glossy scanpad. She put her hand on it, allowing the light to run over her hand. "I know that it's a bad time, with your negotiations going on and everything…"
"Psh. As if there was a choice. My brothers are far more important than any meetings." Karai waved it off absently. Her sharp, concerned golden eyes glanced down once more to the screen of her phone, her thumb absently rubbing the edge of the black phone case which was decorated by a little dangling turtle charm.
The last text that the turtles had sent her loomed ominously in bubbled print.
Leo had apparently learned about the Tengu Shredder. The last thing that Donnie had texted her was that he hadn't taken the news well, and had retreated to the dojo to deal with some rather intense emotions.
That text had been sent nearly half an hour ago, and there hadn't been any word since.
Not even a response to the news that she had landed and was on her way.
"Hey." April seemed to notice the look on Karai's face, and gave her a sympathetic smile as she stepped aside and let Casey pull off his hockey glove and place his own hand against the touch pad. "Leo's going to be okay."
Karai scoffed and put her phone away, crossing her arms. "Of course he is. He's Leo." She stepped forward for her own turn at security scans.
A few more passwords, pressing secret buttons, and playing a short song on a keyboard that popped out (Karai always thought that it sounded like it could be the theme song of a Saturday morning cartoon), and the bricks in the wall slid up to reveal the secret door which finally whooshed open to let them through. All three of them moved forward, stepping through and letting it close behind them securely. The stone brick tunnel they walked through was dotted by both seen and unseen defense mechanisms, thankfully all of them currently idle, bypassed by their security clearance. Ahead of them, they could see the heavy, metal door leading to the lair.
"So…" Casey was wearing his hockey mask, completely kitted out for battle just in case, and his voice was thus slightly muffled. "What's the game plan?"
"Get to Leo, make sure he's fine, and, if not, strangle my other three brothers for making this more complicated than it needed to be." Karai's tense footsteps quickening ever so slightly.
"It's… it's not going to be that bad, Karai." April winced, hurrying along as well to keep up. "The guys know Leo better than anybody, and they know what they're doing."
"No offense Red, but I don't think any of us know what we're doing right now." Casey adjusted his golf bag of weapons on his back worriedly. "We're fighting a demonic ninja biosoldier who's a clone of the Shredder. If you know what you're doing in that sort of situation, then man, I don't want to know what kind of life experiences you've had!" He sighed. "I dunno. If I were Leo, I'd be freaking out a ton too."
Karai's jaw tightened. Reaching the end of the tunnel, she grabbed the handle of the heavily reinforced door, shifting it with a heavy clunk of internal bolts and pushing it open.
Right behind her, April followed her into the lair, still trying to inspire optimism and confidence. "Casey, don't worry. Leo has a good head on his shoulders, and he has his brothers to talk him through any issues he's having. I'm sure that the guys have everything completely… under… control."
April's statement trailed off as they stepped inside, her steps faltered and then stopped, her mouth dropping open agape.
The three humans could do nothing but stare at the chaotic scene unfolding before them.
There was some sort of small citrus fruit littered all over the lair, some scattered about slightly battered, bruised, but still whole, and others left nothing more than pulpy smears, smashed against the walls and counters. A wooden grocery crate lay discarded near a ring of four tipped over chairs in the middle of the lair, a small pile of the fruit around it proving that it was probably the original source of ammunition.
Furniture was overturned, shelves were knocked over, and, most of all, everything was covered in pulp with the scent of smashed citrus overpowering every other smell. It was like somebody blasted the whole lair with orange juice.
A ball of flailing limbs and shells rolled across the floor of the lair in a tumble of curses, snarls, and angry turtle hisses. Mikey had apparently just decided to embrace whatever this chaos was, and instead of joining his brothers in their citrus-fueled battle, he was sitting cross legged on the kitchen counter, munching on an armful of the small fruits while gleefully calling out commentary and encouragement to the current combatants.
The collection of living turtle brothers bounced to a halt and unraveled enough to make out individual turtles, with Leo left sitting on Raph's shell and Donnie tried to restrain him from behind. The blue banded turtle managed to yank his wrist from Donnie's desperate grip and, thus freed, squished the kumquat fruit he was holding right into the back of Raph's neck, right under the lip of his shell.
Raph gave an indignant yelp and twisted about, cursing loudly, but Leo was already rolling away, tumbling back and scooping up a nearby kumquat off the floor as he went. Donnie dove down to catch him midroll, but Leo quickly changed course, twisting his somersault to instead spring light up and away off one hand, dodging Donnie's dive and flinging the kumquat at his purple brother as he moved.
Donnie sputtered as the fruit smacked him on the side of the head with pinpoint accuracy.
"Ooh, and yet another solid hit on the Dee-meister by our boy in blue!" Mikey commented gleefully from his countertop perch. "But wait! Raph is getting up, and it looks like he's ready to jump back into the fray! Will the tag team be too much for our kumquat throwing hero?"
"Mikey! Shut! Up! You're! Not! Helping!" Raph pointed at him accusingly as he hissed angrily, and sputtered as another kumquat bounced off the back of his head. He whipped back around, his green eyes flashing with rage. "And Leo, I swear, if you don't stop doing that, I'm going to… to…!" He sputtered as a kumquat bounced off the end of his nose, interrupting his threat. "Damn it Leo!"
"Don't like it?" Leo snarled back, running up a tipped over cabinet to leap up and grab the railing of the second floor, avoiding Donnie's tackle dive and retaliating with another flung kumquat. "Then DODGE!"
"Mikey, quit sitting on your shell and laughing at this, and get over here to help us!" Donnie sputtered, shuffling indecisively underneath Leo, obviously debating whether to climb up after Leo or get ready to catch him if he fell. "This is serious!"
"Are you kidding?" Mikey tossed another kumquat to Leo helpfully, who easily caught it in one hand while hanging off the edge of the second floor walkway and promptly chucked it at Donnie below. "This is amazing! I should be recording this for future reference! Oh. Hey!" He seemed to notice the slack jawed humans for the first time, and waved at them enthusiastically. "Karai's here! And April and Casey! Hey guys!"
"What?" Donnie and Raph looked up with alarm, and Leo took advantage of that to leap off his perch and escape to the main floor once more, rolling to land close to the tipped over crate and reloading his arsenal of throwable fruit.
"Aw man." Casey sounded genuinely disappointed, pushing back his hockey mask as he looked around. "I always seem to miss out on the best shenanigans!"
"What's… going on here?" April asked, stepping cautiously in and in awe of the sheer citrus-y state of the lair.
"Uh... Leo's mad." Mikey explained helpfully. "Y'know, about the whole 'lying about the Shredder to his face' and all that."
"I… see that." Karai glanced around, bemused as she stepped over some squished kumquats.
"Dammit! We weren't lying to Leo!" Raph corrected him, frustrated and disgusted as he angrily reached around to try and wiped away the crushed kumquat at the back of his neck. "We were PROTECTING him!"
"APPARENTLY my brothers think 'protecting me' means treating me like I've regressed to a helpless toddler stage of intelligence and independence! They were babysitting me!" Leo hissed, spitting out the words as if the very act of speaking them was distasteful. He gathered up a handful of intact kumquats and sprung away, just as Raph tried to sneak up and tackle him, pelting him with one of the fruits as he did so. "And I'm just reminding my brothers that I'm still a very competent ninja, and I can still fight beside them!"
"Oh fer fuck's sake!" Raph smacked his head with his palm in frustration, and then turned to their human companions, gesturing at Leo angrily. "Guys! Tell him he's being an idiot! He's not listening to us! Ow!"
He was struck in the face by another kumquat, and whirled back on Leo, eyes aflame.
"You're not listening to me!" Leo sounded just as offended, his milky eyes narrowed in a disapproving but unseeing glare as he balanced on a coffee table, obviously somehow warily tracking Donnie and Raph's movements.
"Guys, this is stupid." April sighed, fingering her forehead. "We can sit down and talk this out without trashing the lair with… with..." She picked one up and looked at it with some degree of bewilderment. "What are these? Tiny clementines or tangerines or something?"
"They're kumquats." Donnie informed her, moving over to flank Leo's left, while Raph moved silently to the right. "Part of a group of small fruit-bearing trees in the flowering plant family Rutaceae. Originating in China, it spread over Asia, was introduced to Europe in 1846, and then later to North America, mostly in the southeastern part of the country."
"Ah." April blinked.
"And I've tried talking to them!" Leo said with some degree of frustration in his voice. He leapt away just as Donnie and Raph launched themselves forward, flinging a fruit at both of them as he did so and getting cursed by both of them, Raph a little more vulgar, but Donnie no less creative in his choice of words. "But they're still treating me like.. like I can't do anything! Like I'm helpless without one of them holding my hand!"
"And so... to remedy this, you're throwing tiny fruits at them." April didn't sound at all convinced by this plan.
"Yes." Leo said simply, rolling out of the way of another grapple attempt and leaping up to flip over the couch, ducking behind it to use as a makeshift fort as he launched all the kumquats he currently held at his brothers.
"Well, I think it's a perfectly reasonable form of debate." Mikey shrugged, rather casually letting the kumquat bounce off the side of his head and not attempting in the slightest to dodge it.
"Yes. Of course you do." April sighed.
"Actually," Casey offered. "I kinda agree with Mikey on this. Can all future arguments be settled with food fights?"
"What?! No! This is serious! It's no time for jokes!" Donnie was obviously flustered and exasperated, trying to circle around the couch to get to Leo.
"This is so fuckin' stupid!" Raph snarled fiercely as he turned to the humans, pointing accusingly at Leo as if tattling on his older brother. "Leo is convinced that he can just charge out there and go fight the fuckin SHREDDER! We're trying to keep the idiot from getting himself killed!"
"I never said that!" Leo retorted sharply as he darted first one way, and then another around the couch, avoiding Donnie. "I never ONCE said that I wanted to go out there to take on Shredder by myself! That's just what you heard, because you're not actually listening to anything I'm saying!"
Donnie, tired of this ring around the rosie game, lunged over the back of the couch, and gave a grunt as Leo unexpected switched directions and instead leapt off his shell, knocking him to the ground as he leapt upwards, landing halfway up the seldom used metal ladder leading up to the second floor.
"What I actually said," Leo continued fiercely from his perch on the ladder, "was that I'm not helpless, and I can still fight alongside you guys! I've been telling you that I can still fight! We can still fight! Together!"
"No, we can't, Leo!" Raph snarled in frustration, stomping over to the ladder to continue trying to retrieve his agitated and wayward blue brother. "You have no idea how dangerous this new Shredder is, and you're not getting anywhere near him! You HAVE to stay here, where it's safe!"
"Why?" Karai asked unexpectedly. "We always work best as a team, and Leo's leadership has always been invaluable in battle. Why can't Leo lead us against the Shredder now that he's back?"
Raph froze at the bottom of the ladder, on hand already resting on the side, and turned to sputter at her in disbelief. "Wait, what?! Why?! Karai! He's-he's BLIND!"
"And?" Karai shrugged as if that were an inconsequential fact. "I was trained personally most of my childhood by a blind ninja, remember? Hattori Tatsu. Even though he was blind, it took all of us teaming up to beat him." She snorted. "Do you really think Leo's any less capable? What exactly can't he do anymore? Sneak like a ninja? He traveled all across the world and he did okay. Fight? He already dealt with the NeoFoot for months." She paused and bent down to pick up a kumquat off the floor, examining it and giving a wry smirk. "And right now, his being blind doesn't seem to be helping you guys in your fight against him. He seems to be holding his own against you guys well enough."
The other three turtles paused at that, then turned to blink at Leo as if they were suddenly seeing the current ongoing situation in front of them clearly for the first time.
"Thank you, Karai." Leo huffed as he hung on the ladder, waiting patiently for his brothers to process this. "It's good to see you, by the way. I hope your flight went well?"
"There was a little bit of turbulance, but other than that, it was uneventful." Karai shrugged as she leaned against one of the lair's pillars, her golden eyes sparkling with amusement as she casually popped the kumquat in her mouth.
Donnie, ever the scientist, was the first to finally react. He had new data that he had overlooked before, and he needed to test this theory. He picked up one of the many kumquats lying discarded on the floor, hesitated for a moment, and then turned and threw it at Leo.
Leo's hand shot out and caught it easily, tossed it expertly over his shell, and used his other hand to grab it mid toss, all to fling it down at Raph below. Doing all this, somehow, while keeping a steady perch on the ladder.
"Ow!" Raph protested, rubbing the top of his head.
"Huh." Mikey blinked.
"How?!" Donnie was dumbfounded. "Leo, you can't see!"
"I've been telling you how since I got back!" Leo exploded angrily.
"Your super ninja senses!" Mikey realized with a burst of delight, seemingly quite willing to believe that his big brother had some form of super powers now. "Tremorsense and all that ''Sixth Sense' fighting in the dark stuff' that Master Splinter taught us!"
"Wow. And apparently this is the world that we live in." Leo mused incredulously as he draped his arms over the rungs of the ladder he hung on. "Where Mikey is the one who paid attention to what I was saying."
"I…" Donnie seemed at a loss for words. "But you... you…"
"Just kicked your shells." Casey observed wryly.
"Well. I wouldn't go that far." Raph grumbled under his breath, sounding a little distant and thrown off balance.
"Do I need to get more kumquats, Raph?" Leo warned him dangerously, pointing in his brother's direction through the ladder rungs. "I can get more kumquats."
Raph huffed even as he quickly backed away from the ladder, bristled up and still trying to act tough. "Yeah, well, fuck you, Leo. This whole tantrum was stupid and dramatic and unnecessary and did I mention stupid?"
Rolling his eyes, Leo slid down and hopped off the ladder and walked over to the kitchen. He pulled a couple of dishcloths out of a drawer, flipped on the sink to soak them all, and turned to toss one of the wet washcloths to each of his citrus covered brothers.
They caught them, looking at him a little uncertainly.
Leaning back against the counter, he began to wipe down his own sticky scales, washing off the kumquat mess as he continued firmly but calmly. "Alright, now that all this nonsense is taken care of, there's a lot to get done. Karai, April, Casey? My apologies for the messy state of the lair. We'll get the table cleaned off and some coffee going for you, and then we can have a proper war meeting while my brothers and I clean up the mess we made."
"The mess we made?" Donnie raised an eyeridge skeptically. "Leo, you were throwing the kumquats at us!"
"You guys did kind of deserve it." Leo huffed as if it were obvious.
"We kinda did." Mikey agreed, happily eating a half crushed kumquat, his washcloth draped over his head like a hat.
Karai sighed happily. "Oh gods did we miss you Leo."
Raph gave a long, long-suffering sigh out of his nose, uncrossed his arms, and went to fetch the mops and a bucket out of the closet.
"And that's all we've heard from them." April finished summarizing the details of their encounters with the NeoFoot to Leo, sitting at the newly cleaned off table with the other two humans and sipping on a mug of coffee. "They just showed up outside our workplaces, delivered the message, and left. They haven't shown any sign of aggression so far, but, still, we're fairly certain that it's a trap."
Leo frowned, thinking as he sat on the floor and wiped down the sides of the counter with a wet rag. "I'm... not so sure about that. About it being a trap, I mean."
"Leo, you can't actually think that they're serious." Karai sounded doubtful.
"The NeoFoot are ruthless, true, but they've always shown themselves to strictly hold themselves to a form of honor code, as twisted as it may be." Leo shrugged. "To promise a peaceful meeting, only to turn around and break their word seems… dishonorable and cowardly, to put it bluntly. Against their personal moral codes and not something that they would normally resort to." Leo slowed down his scrubbing as he thought, then turned, dipped the rag in the bucket of water, and resumed scrubbing. "Plus, back when we overheard them in the alleyway, they made it very clear that the new Shredder wanted us not only alive, but completely unharmed. Um…. Is this area clean, or did I miss a spot?" He gave an unsure sniff. He didn't smell any citrus anymore on this particular counter area, but he wanted to make sure.
"There's still a little spot up under the counter ledge, near the corner to your left." Karai offered helpfully.
"Ah. Thanks." He reached up to scrub at what he hoped was the spot she was talking about.
"Leo, you haven't met this new Tengu Shredder." Donnie's voice was serious, the sounds of swishing water letting Leo know that he was over helping Raph mop the floors, walls, and, in some cases, the ceiling. "He's a depraved monster who only cares about winning at any cost. There's no honor there anymore. He would most definitely stoop so low as to dishonor the rules of parlay."
"So you guys keep telling me." Leo gave the area another scrub and then ran his hand over the damp surface, satisfied when he didn't feel or smell any more stickiness. He picked up the bucket to move over to a new spot. "But something about this doesn't make sense, and it's bugging me."
As he settled back down to continue cleaning, his left hand, the one not holding the wash rag, shot up and caught the kumquat sailing through the air at him before it could hit him on the head.
"That's so cool!" Mikey's voice whispered with awe and delight from the second floor balcony.
"Mikey, like I said, you have one hour to get that out of your system." Leo huffed, turning to toss the kumquat into the nearby pail, which was filled with an already impressive pile of battered fruit pieces. "Then the whole 'Throwing things at Leo' is going on the List."
"Dude, you have magic ninja senses!" Mikey said giddily. "How can I not throw things at you?! It's awesome!"
"I'm just saying, one hour." Leo warned him darkly. "Then there will be consequences." He shook his head, dunking his cloth in the warm, soapy water and going back to scrubbing as he continued his train of thought from earlier. "The NeoFoot are acting strangely. Something happened between my last encounter with them back in the jungle, and here. They're not as confident, not as sure. I think something happened with the Shredder. Back when we overheard them in the alleyway, they made it sound as if they don't know where he is? I don't know. It's weird."
"They did?" There was a soft clink of porcelain as April set her cup down on the table, her aura shifting slightly, intrigued by this unexpected twist of events.
"We haven't had any word or sightings of the Shredder." Karai realized, her chair creaking slightly as she sat back. "Only the NeoFoot."
"He was an experimental construction, with only sparse and rather shady scientific protocols followed in his creation." Donnie mused. "Perhaps they lost control of him?"
"Well that's comforting." Casey said sarcastically. "Like every bad science fiction movie."
"Or maybe he's off somewhere, having a tantrum or something." Raph grunted, still sounding a little sulky as he mopped. "He's probably pissed he lost his chance at Leo, and is blaming his minions for his failure."
"Possibly?" Leo shrugged. "Whether they lost control of him, or they now have to 'redeem' themselves to get back in his good graces, we don't know." Leo paused, and turned his sightless gaze towards his family, tilting his head slightly as he wondered out loud, "Heck, this Shredder isn't actually Oroku Saki, but an entirely new person, with his own free will to choose his own path. Are we… are we certain that he's one hundred percent evil? Maybe he realized that he didn't have to be evil after all. Maybe he decided to, I don't know, join a hippie drum circle somewhere or something?"
Maybe, for once, the universe would give them a break, and decide to go down the peaceful tree hugging hippie route, instead of always defaulting to the insane evil ninja overlord option.
"Leo, he once burned down a pet store just because they were advertising pet turtles for sale." Raph told him flatly.
"Oh." Leo paused, slightly horrified. "Uh…?"
"Most of the animals were saved, thankfully." April reassured him. "The firefighters did most of the saving, but your brothers did some rather impressive heroics behind the scenes."
"Ah. Good. Okay." Leo winced. "Ouch. Well then, I guess we can probably rule out the 'He left the NeoFoot to advocate for World Peace' theory. Definitely evil."
Raph scoffed, and the sounds of his mopping gained a slightly more aggressive sloshing sound on the stone floor. "That's what we've been trying to tell ya!"
"Well, one can always hope." Leo frowned as he continued his own scrubbing with his washcloth, dipping it again to rinse it off. "But that still leaves the fact that we still don't know what's going on. There's too many unknowns here, and I don't like it. We need more information, and there's one way I know we can get it."
"That meeting with the NeoFoot." Karai apparently could see his reasoning.
Leo nodded. "Yeah. We can find out what they want, and what their plans are."
"And if it's a trap? If the Shredder ends up being there, I promise you, it's not going to end in anything but a fight." Raph growled, obviously not liking this plan at all. "And don't start that whole 'I'm a super blind ninja warrior' crap again, Leo. I get it. But even… even if you can still fight… After everything we told you, you can't honestly think that we can beat the freaking Tengu Shredder, Leo!"
"No. Not in a fair fight, we probably can't." Leo acknowledged calmly, much to his brothers' surprise, if their auras pausing to stare at him was any indication. Then he gave them a sly, dangerous half grin. "But then again… Who ever said we were going to fight fair?"
There was a moment of silence as everybody stared at him, obviously not expecting that reply.
"You have a plan." Karai mused, the chair she was sitting on creaking slightly as she sat back, obviously intrigued.
"I have a plan." Leo nodded confidently.
He tossed the rag into the bucket and stood up, his face hardening in determination. His brothers needed to be reminded who they were. Who they all were. And, not going to lie, Leo was still in a fighting mood. This Tengu Shredder had hurt his brothers. He had destroyed their home. And there was going to be hell to pay.
"Guys, this is OUR home. Our city." Leo turned to them, letting the tone of his voice show just how pissed of he was. "We are the Hamato Clan, the sons and daughters of Hamato Yoshi, and the heroes of more adventures and victors of more battles than any other living creatures in the multiverse. We are the top of the food chain here. Not the NeoFoot. Not even the Shredder. They are the interlopers, the trespassers, the ones walking so boldly into the wolves' den. And we are going to remind them quite plainly and in no unmistakable terms that these wolves know how to hunt. The NeoFoot are going to play by our rules now, and we're playing to win."
He felt everybody's eyes on him as he spoke, sitting still as if absorbing his words.
"So here's what's going to happen." He casually picked up a fairly whole kumquat lying on the counter, rolling it in his hand thoughtfully. "The NeoFoot will get their meeting that they're demanding. But it's going to be on our terms. It's going to be where we say it's going to be. They're not the ones in charge any more. We are. They're going to go where we say they're going to go, and jump when we say jump. And if this new Shredder tries anything, anything at all..." Leo popped the kumquat in his mouth and chewed the fruit thoughtfully for a moment. "Well, he might just find out that the sewers can be a very, VERY dangerous place."
There was another long and this time somewhat hopeful moment as they all mulled this over.
Finally, Mikey spoke up, quiet but hopefully. "Can we incorporate the net taser cannons into this plan?"
"Sure. Why not?" Leo agreed amiably. "Maybe some sleeping gas too. That seems particularly effective."
"That… was… an accident!" Donnie protested indignantly, obviously perturbed by the realization that this was probably going to be brought up for the rest of forever. But then he mulled over Leo's idea, and seemed intrigued by the possibilities. "But yes, I think I could set up a transportable gas dispenser system if needed. That's actually rather ingenious. Especially if I create some sort of barriers to automatically deploy and seal off sections of the sewers and contain the gas field!"
Donnie absently started mopping again as he mentally started drawing mental blueprints and plotting several different devices that he could make to fit the scenarios running through his mind.
As their purple brother began calculating maniacally once more, meanwhile Raph was shifting from foot to foot, clinging to the mop handle as if using it to keep himself grounded. Finally, he spoke, his voice low. "You… you really think we can do this, Leo?"
Leo gave him a confident, cocky grin. "Raph, are you kidding? It's us. I know we can do this."
Raph's aura twisted about with some sort of emotion that Leo couldn't quite read.
"Oh for the sake of chocolate drizzled pizza." he heard Mikey sigh, and then there was a light thump as his orange brother leapt off the second floor balcony and landed on cat-like feet. "Here Raphie, let me help you."
"Wait! What?! Mikey!" Raph yelped as he was shoved towards Leo, and before he could figure out what was going on, Leo found himself wrapped up in orange arms and squished against his red brother.
Neither Leo nor Raph really knew how to respond to this, and both stood there stiffly, squished together by Mikey.
After an awkward second, Leo reached up and hesitantly patted Raph on the shoulder. "Hey. Raph." he offered kindly. "Would you feel better if you got a chance to stab the Shredder?"
Raph's arms were stiff at his side, his fists clenched, but then he sighed, and his head tipped forward to rest against Leo's shoulder, tension leaving his muscles. "Yeah. Yeah, that actually sounds good."
"We'll try to work you stabbing the Shredder into our plan then." Leo promised him.
Raph's forehead didn't leave Leo's shoulder, but Leo could almost see the relieved and almost somewhat eager grin growing across his face. He cleared his throat "Right. Looking forward to it."
"Now hug!" Mikey encouraged them in a whisper as he squeezed them together.
Raph shook his head, gave a helpless chuckle, and then his arms crept up from his side to wrap around Leo and pull him tightly into a hug. A feeling of intense relief radiated off his aura, and his old fighting flames seemed to rekindle anew as he crushed Leo tighter.
"Holy Chalupa, I think we actually might be able to pull this off!" Donnie realized with a sense of wonderment, and he stepped over to join the hug, excitement starting to buzz through his aura. "Leo! I think we're actually going to do this!"
"Hee!" Mikey beamed, and happily joined the hug.
Leo closed his eyes and grinned happily, squeezing his brothers back.
"Aw." April gushed happily, sipping on her coffee. "This is so cute!"
And then, amidst the hug, Leo's hand shot up and caught Mikey's arm by the wrist, preventing the kumquat held therein from being squished down into the rim of his shell.
"So… cool…!" Mikey whispered in gleeful awe.
A/N
Well. The boys finally seem to be on the same page again! I'm thinking the next chapter might get a little interesting.
And, once again, another slightly subtle nod towards that great fic, Mikey's List: The 222 Things Mikey Is No Longer Allowed To Do To Blind Leo. I swear, I'm not the author of that story! But the list is just too perfect. All the rules are so far falling naturally into place! In this chapter, we see Rule 4 come into existence. Mikey's Not allowed to throw things at Leo "to make sure he isn't getting rusty."