Title: Buried Alive
Day: Whumptober 2023, Day 25
Prompt: "You're not delivering a perfect body to the grave" Storm/Buried Alive/ "They're not breathing"
Fandom: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Word Count:
Author: aquietwritingcorner/realitybreakgirl
Rating: T
Characters: Donatello, Leonardo
Warning: NA
Summary: An encounter with the Purple Dragons has disastrous consequences for Donatello—and he doesn't just mean the processor that they stole from him.
Notes: I wrote this, spell checked it, and posted it. It's past 1:30 AM. Let's hope this is good.

Buried Alive

This was not good. This was very much not good. On the scale of not good things, with the highest point being attacked and trapped in a tidal wave of beach balls and the lowest being having to listen to Nardo prattle on about how awesome he was right before Donny turned on the noise cancelling feature on his headphones, this was above the beach balls.

Way above the beach balls.

Maybe, for once, just for this time, Donny should have listened to Leo. But the allure of new components was so strong. Donny had to go see if he could get that Ultraspeed 20WARP Refined Lithium Processor from the Supercomputer that the Nakamura company was dumping. He knew that he wasn't the only one who was eyeing it, and he needed to get there before anyone else did so that he could get his hands on it.

He should have expected that the Purple Dragons would be there, too.

He had been blinded by his enthusiasm for the new tech, and he hadn't been paying the attention that he should have—which is how he ended up in this situation.

Donny had managed to get a hold of the processor and was flying away with his prize when, out of nowhere, he had been shot out of the sky. Fortunately, he hadn't been very high, but landing had not been fun, as junkyards were not know for being soft and squishy. It had obviously been planned, though, as he, as soon as he had landed, then Kendra and her ilk had attacked him. At first, he had been doing fairly well, managing to keep the processor from them, or to get it back from them.

And then? Then one of her lackies had hit him with the scoop of an excavator, knocking him into a pit. Donny had landed painfully on his back, and barely had time to rollover on his side before a scoop of dirt fell on him. It was only seconds later that more dirt had been pushed on him. He'd barely been able to press the emergency button on his belt before a pile of dirt and other debris rained down on him, pinning him down and burying him.

"Ha! Thanks for the processor, Othello! Hope you enjoy being buried alive!" Kendra called. "To bad you're not going to look perfect for your grave!"

"Oh, screw you, Kendra!" Donny yelled out, and then immediately had to cough as dirt fell in his mouth. His battleshell was still somewhat functional, and he managed to get one of his mechanical arms to move, bringing a facemask with his emergency oxygen supply to his face. He vaguely heard rumbling above him and hoped that it wasn't the Purple Dragons dumping more on top of him. The debris had created a very small pocket that he could hopefully maneuver around in to work on getting himself out, but if they dumped more on top of him, it might crush him or fill up that space. If it filled up the space that would be very, very bad.

When no pressure came, Donny attempted to wiggle around, seeing if he could move around. His legs seemed pretty solidly trapped, but he had a little room to work his arms around. He explored the area as best he could, but there wasn't much room for him to move around. There wasn't much that he could do, and Donny laid his head back, thinking.

Okay, okay. He was trapped under a pile of debris and dirt. His legs were trapped with no wiggle room. There was limited space around his torso, which meant that he could breathe, but he was still limited in his movement. He had an oxygen mask, so he could keep dirt from falling in his mouth and throat. And he had managed to press his emergency button, so his brothers should be here soon.

So, all he had to do was wait.

Just wait.

Yep.

There was another rumble above him, and Donny suddenly realized what it was. It wasn't a bulldozer waiting to push more stuff on him. No, it was a rumble of thunder. Donny suddenly remembered how cloudy the skies had looked, and the weather reports he had read earlier this week, and his eyes widened in shock.

Donny moved as much as he could, scrambling to try to find a way to start digging himself out of there. There was very little space to move the dirt he would be digging through, but he didn't see that he had much of a choice. If the rain poured and turned that dirt to mud, and the mud flowed down around him, it would flow into every nook and cranny, taking up all of the space—including the space he had to breathe. It would constrict around his chest, as he exhaled, and leave him no room to inhale.

He had to get out of here.

The thunder rumbled overhead, and Donny dug faster, hoping that somehow, he could, at the least, free up enough room to make himself a pocket that he wouldn't get crushed in. But as the rain poured down and the dirt started to turn into mud, he wasn't sure if he was going to have enough time.

"You sure it's coming from somewhere over here?" Raph asked.

Leo huffed a little and rolled his eyes. "For the last time, Raph, yes, I am! I know I'm not our beloved genius, but I can read a tracker."

"But I don't see him anywhere," Raph said, frowning.

"What if his tracker got knocked off?" Mikey asked.

"His trackers are under our skin," Leo muttered, squinting at the screen, trying to see it clearly through the pouring rain.

Mikey gasped dramatically. "What if his skin got knocked off?"

That brought all sorts of lovely images to his brain, and Leo pushed them to the side. "Highly unlikely, mi hermano," he said as he walked a little further. "More likely that Dontron has lost himself in a pile of junk."

"Yeah," Raph said. "Like that time we played a really intense game of hide and seek, and Don saw something he wanted under the cushions and pillows we had stacked up, and they fell on him, and we didn't find him for, like, three hours."

Leo frowned as he looked at the screen. He should be right on top of Don. But his brother wasn't here. Wait—

Leo whirled around. "Under the cushions and pillows—He's here! He's under here!" Leo said, looking down at the pile of junk and mud under his feet. "He's—oh no."

The mud—that was bad, that was very, very bad.

"Leo?" Raph questioned.

"We've got to dig him out—now!" Leo dropped to his knees and began scooping away as much mud as he could.

In seconds, Raph and Mikey jumping in to help.

Raph lit up his ninpo. "I can just scoop everything out! We'll get him out quicker that way!"

"No!" Leo said. "No, if we move too much, we could shift things and hurt Donny. We need to move quickly, but carefully. Scoop out only the mud! We'll need to dig out the junk. Mikey, I'm going to need you to be ready to support anything large in here. We don't need it to slip down. I'm going to move what I can with my portals."

Mikey and Raph nodded, and the three brothers got to work. They moved quickly, operating under Leo's direction, careful in moving things, but working with a sense of urgency. Every foot that they dug without finding Donny sent Leo's worry skyrocketing up again, and every slip of debris fed his growing, if hidden, panic. It wasn't until they were near the bottom of the pit that Raph stopped suddenly.

"I hit something—and it ain't mud or metal."

"Move," Leo said, and rushed to where Raph was. He dug through the mud, and stopped for half a second when he found a green arm. "It's him! Mikey, keep holding that stuff up until we pull him out! Raph, help me dig!"

They worked quickly, digging out as much of Donny as they could. Leo kept note of what he could do as they did. Donny's skin still had warmth to it, which was encouraging. He wasn't moving, though, which was discouraging. He had clearly been in a little pocket of some sort, which meant that maybe he had been able to breathe. And the oxygen mask was a relief too.

And then Leo realized that Donny wasn't breathing.

Leo cursed. Donny was still stuck tight in the mud. His legs were trapped under something, and his battle shell felt like it was suctioned in. Leo made a split-second decision.

He reached for the clasps on the battleshell, undoing them. "He's not breathing! Raph, get his legs free! Mikey, pull on these beams for all your worth!"

Raph got under the beams and Mikey's chains wrapped around them almost simultaneously. Leo ripped the oxygen mask off of Donny's face and, as soon as his legs were free, he pulled his twin out of the mud. Almost too fast to see, Leo had a sword out, creating a portal and jumping through it with Donny. They came through next to Mikey, but Leo didn't spare his little brother a second look.

"Oh, no you don't!" Leo said as he positioned Don on the ground and felt for a pulse. There wasn't one. "You're not allowed to die on me!"

Compressions on a mutant turtle were not the easiest thing to do. Leo and Donny had long ago worked out the best way to theoretically do them, but this was the first practical application of it. Leo pushed, and pushed hard, knowing that he had to push hard to get through the plastron. It was hard, but Leo wasn't about to give up.

"Mikey, as soon as Raph safe, get ready to breathe for me!"

Breathing wasn't necessarily a part of CPR anymore, as getting the heart beating and blood flowing was the most important aspect, but since Leo had someone who could breathe for Don while he was doing compressions, he wasn't going to turn it down.

Dimly, Leo heard Raph climb out of the pit and hurry up behind him, although he paid the bigger turtle no mind—at least, not until he spoke.

"Leo!" Raph said "Leo, I got his battleshell out I didn't know if it could help—"

Leo turned around a swiped the battleshell from Raph's hands. "Breathe, Mikey!" he said, as he searched through the damaged device for the one thing Donny had agreed to put in every battleshell. It didn't take Leo long to find the shock pads, and he pulled them out without hesitation.

"Back away!" he said, and placed the pads precisely where he wanted them. Pulling back, he pressed the button to deliver the electricity, and watched as his zapped through his brother's body. He reached to see if he could find a pulse, listen for his heart or breathing, but there was nothing. Leo pressed the button again, watching as his brother's body stiffened with the shock.

This time when Leo checked, there was a pulse. It was not very strong, but it was there. And, thankfully, Leo could see the rise and fall of Donny's chest again. He was breathing. Leo fumbled with the oxygen mask, seeing that Donny still had some left in it, and pulled it back over his brother's face.

"Okay," he said. "Okay. Raph, pick him up as gently as you can. Mikey, pick up the battleshell and stay with Raph. Donny needs that oxygen. I'm going to cut us a portal home and straight to the medbay."

His brothers nodded, and within seconds they were home, where Leo bellowed for Splinter, and the family began the work of ensuring that Donatello would stay alive.

It was a few hours later when Donny groaned. His eyes fluttered open, and he looked around, as if trying to figure out what that annoying beeping noise was.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Sleeping Beauty,"

"If I died, the Snow White would be the more apropos princess," he muttered around the oxygen mask. "What the—what is this for."

Leonardo leaned into his line of sight. "That's there because you were Snow White and I didn't know how much support you might need."

Donny turned his head to look at his twin, a little confused. "What?"

Leo sighed and began checking over Donny's vitals. "You weren't breathing, Don. When we finally dug you out of that pit, you weren't breathing. I don't think you had enough room to breath with all of the mud around you."

"Ah," Donny said, leaning into the pillows a bit more. "Then my plan to create some space for myself failed. Unfortunate."

"Unfortunate barely covers it, mi hermano," Leo said as he sat back down next to Donny's bedside. "Expect a lot of hovering for the next week or so, at least."

"A week—"

"You died Donny. I had to shock your heart back. Mikey and Raph saw the whole thing. Dad was here for the aftermath, and April rushed over as soon as we called her." Leo's expression softened a little. "Let us worry a bit, alright?"

Donny stared at Leo for a moment, and then huffed. "Fine. But if anyone tries to keep me from either repairing my battleshell or building a new one, they will be on my list."

Leo grinned and shrugged. "Eh. I've been on there enough times. They'll be fine."

"You're never off of it," Donny shot back.

The two brothers settled into silence for a moment, before Leo asked the question that he'd been wondering the entire time.

"Don—what happened?"

Don sighed, then winced at the pain that caused. "Ah. CPR, I see. I'll have to consult you later on the effectiveness of it." He looked up at Leo. "It was the Purple Dragons. I got the processor, but then they shot me out of the sky. We fought, until one of them used the scoop of an excavator to push me in that pit and dump dirt on me. Someone else used a bulldozer to push a lot more dirt and debris on me, and I was trapped. I figured I'd be embarrassed but alright until you all came, but then it started raining. I knew the dirt would turn to mud and tried to protect myself but, well…" he looked down at himself. "Obviously I failed. And they stole my processor!"

Leo just shook his head. That was messed up. Then again, he was suspicious that Kendra was a psychopath. Sometimes he wished that the girl would find out about and cross Big Mama just to see her taken down a peg or two.

Leo put his hand on his twin's shoulder instead. "Well then, you'd better rest up. Because it sounds like as soon as you're better, we've got a processor to go take back. And you'll have a whole week to think of revenge plans."

Donny smirked. "Oh, I already have some ideas."

"Ohh, do tell!"

Leo settled in to listen to his brother's plans, until Donny drifted back off to sleep. But that was alright by Leo. After what they had done to Donny, Leo was ready to throw his all into some revenge plans.

For Donny's honor.