Hey! I'm back, first of all thank you to CheetaChan, animifairi, BakaClara + Datninja turtle for reviewing the last chapter. We've hit over 20 reviews! [My highest for a Rise story yet!]
A couple of you might have noticed I changed the synopsis – I realised the story was going in a different direction to what I planned, so amended it as necessary.
This also means that not all future chapters will take place during the night.
Because of this I'm also not taking requests for this story at the minute.
I also haven't been keeping up with new episodes, so I'm not sure if the legendary drill has actually turned up in canon. But I think we can safely consider my fanfiction a bit of an AU.
Long authors note over with – let's crack on.
Clank. Clank. Wwwrrr. Wwwrrr. A pause. Then a prolonged high-pitched whirring coming from the direction of Donatello's lab.
Leo lay on his bed, a pillow wrapped around his head cursing at the ceiling. Thankfully the...experiment next door drowned his voice out.
How the shell was the rest of his family asleep? He knew Raph and Mikey were deep sleepers, but surely Splinter should have been knocking at the lab door round about now? Then Leo remembered. Earplugs.
How, in that moment, he envied his father.
WWWRRR. Another pause. Then another high-pitched whirring sound. It was at this point Leo decided he had enough and removed the pillow from on top of his eyes. This was officially ridiculous now.
He didn't bother knocking, instead he just swung the lab door open and said, with a good degree of irritation. "Would you stop working, for shells sake!?"
His twin turned round from a brightly lit station, looking a little bit like something out of a horror movie. "Why?" Don said, pushing his goggles up with one hand, while putting down a power-drill with the other. "What's wrong?"
Leo looked at him with thinly-veiled irritance. "What's wrong, Donatello, is that it is now 3 in the morning and you are still up!"
"As are you." Purple said with his usual straight-forwardness.
"I have Insomnia!" Leo snapped, shutting the lab door as he realised their argument was audible for the entire lair. "As I believe we've established! What is wrong with you, Donnie? And don't try to fool me, you've been working all night for…ages now! It's not healthy!"
Donnie blinked and opened his beak, clearly about to argue. Then he seemed to change his mind, shut his beak again and said, slowly. "Well…thank you for being so concerned, Leon, but the reason I've been up late lately is simply because I have been working on this drill." And he moved aside to reveal it.
Leo stepped forward, cautiously. He'd never seen it before. To be honest he'd doubted the existence of it. He had genuinely thought that when Donnie said he was 'working on the drill' it was code for 'I need some peace and quiet from you imbeciles', hark why [he'd thought] it was permanently in beta.
Clearly this wasn't the case. If he was being frank he couldn't really see anything special about it – aside from the fact it was quite big. Actually no, scrap that. It was very big. About the same height as Mikey and about the same width as Raphael, to give some visualisation.
"It looks…lovely." Leo said, lamely, upon realising he'd been staring at it for slightly too long. "Very…silver."
Donnie gave a sharp intake of breath, which Blue knew now was the beginning of a lecture. Sure enough…
"It's not just…silver, Leon. It's the Automatic Drill 6000!" Purple stroked the drill lovingly and said. "It has a multitude of purposes – apart from the obvious one. Not only can it drill through anything – and I mean anything – it has a GP Tracker in it that is linked to my Bo-Staff." Donnie pointed one of the multitude of buttons. "The idea is that I can press this button from anywhere – and I mean anywhere – and the drill will shrink up into the main box bit you can see, fly through the air, pinpoint a weak place of entry from the outside of the building and drill through therefore freeing me- and anyone else with me – from whatever perils we face."
Donnie gave a deep sigh, patted the drill a couple of times and then stepped away with a dramatic. "But no! The stupid thing has a multitude of things wrong with it! The GPS isn't working properly – it can only help me if I get kidnapped in New York – and it's having trouble going all the way though concrete let alone diamond! Ugh. It's useless." And with that he threw himself into his spinny chair, and sulkily spun it round.
Leo frowned and shook his head. "Why does it need to go through diamond?"
"Because diamond is the strongest material in the world – keep up Leonardo!" Donnie said, still spinning.
Blue massaged his fore-head. There was a reason he didn't help his twin in the lab very often. "So it's still in Beta?" He said.
"Yes! And it will be till the end of time at this rate. Ugh. I hate myself."
"Donnie-"
"Okay so I don't actually hate myself. But it's very disheartening. Anyway – that's the long answer as to why I'm up EVERY night."
Leo nodded. "Well…you have to go to bed, Donnie. I'm serious, we don't want you to collapse or anything. I mean, you must be tired."
His twin considered, then nodded. "Yeah…I am." He got up and stretched. "I suppose I better head to bed. Night Leo. Love you."
Leo made a valiant effort [and succeeded, he thought] not to show surprise. "Love you to Don. Night."
With that they both went back to their respected rooms, Leo to fruitlessly try to go to sleep, Donnie to think.
That was annoying. Donnie thought as he shut the door to his room. Leo would come in at the worst moments and now Donnie was alone. Alone with his thoughts.
He looked at the bed and shuddered.
He didn't want to go to sleep. Not now. Not ever preferably but...
He sighed. The best laid plans...if only Leo didn't have Insomnia everything would be fine.
Hhmm. If only he didn't have Insomnia...now there was an idea.
He reached for his phone. He'd need outside help with this one.