Chapter 4: Failed experiment
There it was, one possibility. Leo tried to fight against the idea, as it was a long shot but it was the last glimpse of hope. He swept aggressively the tears that had formed up after thinking about Usagi and their last some-what happy conversation. Usagi had gave the crystals for a reason. It had to be. He knew something was gonna happen.
Leo decided it was time to face Donnie.
Of course Donnie was still awake at 3 am. Leo had always nagged him about it even though he did exactly the same thing.
“Leo! What are you doing up?” Donnie said, not even pretending to hide his half-done gadget.
Leo was hesitant for a second. What if Donnie couldn’t help him? The hope was holding him together and he was afraid what would happen if he had to let go.
“Donnie. I need a dimension portal.”
“I need it as fast as possible.”
“Do you think they grow on trees?”
“Well, probably they grow in crops if I’ve understood Usagi correctly but that’s not important right now. I need a dimension portal.”
So this was the moment his brother had completely lost himself, Donnie thought. But he couldn’t lie to himself – a dimension portal sounded so freaking cool.
“It would take a long time, Leo. I need to find… well, first of all, some scientific proof that multiverse exists and then a to find a fuel source-”
Leo opened a little bag with turquoise stones and threw them on the table.
“These are how Usagi travelled to here. At least I think so. You can start from this.”
Leo looked at the floor, fists clenching the bag.
Donnie took one of them carefully in his hands.
“They look like the material from his necklace.”
Leo’s heart was pounding in his chest.
“He… He said that they are what the Realm is protecting. He said they cultivated blue crystals when he was a kid. Could it… could they be to used for teleportation?” Leo asked, full of hope and fear. Please. Please, please, please.
Donnie put the crystal back on the table and gave Leo a pitiful look. He sighed.
“I… It could. It might. He never told you?”
“You never asked how he got here?” Donnie couldn’t believe his brother. How he could not ask about it? Donnie had to always come up with an impossible project to keep his mind occupied every time Usagi came to visit just not to ask him about his realm.
“It was irrelevant to me.” Leo felt like an idiot. But back then it didn’t matter. Usagi came from a blue portal and that’s it. “Why didn’t you ask? You are the geek.”
“You specifically asked me not to ask invasive questions about his home planet or himself because you thought he would feel uncomfortable.”
“And you actually never did? Even when I wasn’t around?”
“Of course not. I promised.”
“Thanks”, Leo said, feeling gratitude to his brother. Even though this one time it would have helped not to listen to him.
Donnie stared at the crystals intensely.
“I will look into them but I won’t promise anything. These crystals could be just for decoration.”
“I know you can figure it out.”
“Thanks for the pressure.”
When Donnie got the portal machine running after a couple of months, Leo could not think straight. It had been so long that who knew what had happened to Usagi. He could’ve been killed for all he knew.
“We should do couple of test runs”, Donnie said when they all stood next to the brand new machine.
“Test runs? You said it’s working, right?” Leo said.
“We can test it to go to Usagi’s realm”, Leo said. “We have wasted enough time.”
Donnie didn’t want to argue longer. Leo had been a pain in everyone’s butt for months and Donnie was getting tired of it. Leo didn’t listen to anyone when he had the attitude.
Donnie gave everyone a little square machine with the little turquoise stone.
“These are portal devices to create portals”, Donnie said and gave everyone one. “They each have a portal stone that is charged by the big machine over here. You can do few jumps from one place to another with these without them needing to be charged but I still haven’t tested how many exacted.”
“I have the one that’s connected to the rest of them so we can do simultaneous teleportation together. One crystal is meant for one person to use and it does not hold the portal for that long so that’s why everyone has their own. So don’t test them. I don’t want any of us to end up in any random realm.”
Donnie gave Leo a long look.
“I can do this by myself”, Leo said and crossed his arms. He was going to do this now, no matter Donnie said.
“We promised to help”, Mikey said. “So that’s what we’re doing.”
Donnie set the coordinates and the portal machine started to glow. They stepped on the machine and the glittering light covered them. When it disappeared, they had appeared in the middle of a blood covered battlefield.
They had ended up somewhere dark, where the only source of light came from the bright blue nebula above. The ground was covered in gray dust that made the lungs hurt.
They were surrounded by different kind of mammals standing on two feet, fighting with katanas, knives and bos against what Leo could only describe as straight from a horror film. The shadowy creatures did not have a clear shape, they moved through the air, slashing their opponents, leaving them screaming on the ground. Leo felt uneasy looking at them.
“What happened?” Leo yelled and drew his katanas.
“I- I don’t know”, Donnie yelled and dodged an arrow. “I- I need to recalibrate. Shield me.”
Neither side cared if they were a foe or a friend. The turtles were attacked immediately. Leo kept his stand to protect Donnie but Mikey and Raph were getting pulled further away to fight.
“We are on some kind of crossroad section”, Donnie yelled, trying to make the numbers on his little carry-on machine to make sense. “There’s a lot of the same energy in here as these crystals so maybe that’s what confused the machine. We are not that far off tho. I think some of these people here might be from Usagi’s realm…”
“For fucks sake Donnie”, Leo couldn’t hold his frustration in as he kicked a leopard to the ground. The leopard in blue-red costume got back up and attacked again, forcing Leo further away from Donnie who looked at him, very much insulted.
“You blaming me?” Donnie’s cheeks started to burn red. “What the fuck. I said we needed to calibrate.”
“Well I thought you meant that we would end up few miles off but not in an entirely wrong fuckin planet!” Leo yelled as he dodged the leopard’s attack and hit them on the head, so it passed out on the ground.
“Oh, I didn’t realize you were so stupid to not understand that”, Donnie spitted. “I’m sick of your nonsense, Leo. Get a hold of yourself.”
Leo was ready strike back but he felt a push and something cold touched his shoulder. He turned around and faced the shadowy creature, standing in front of him, staring with its white bottomless eyes. Leo couldn’t breath.
The heavy feeling from his heart poured to every inch of his body. The failure, the fear that had kept piling on for months. He would lose. Everything. He would never find Usagi. He had brought his brothers to their grave. They couldn’t get out of there alive and it was all because of him.
He would never find peace.
Lightning struck the air, covering everything in blue light. The force of the strike made Leo fall to the ground and he couldn’t believe what he saw. It had struck Donatello. Leo felt weak, powerless, he almost couldn’t get back up.
“Don!” Leo cried. He heard his brothers yelling from the distance. Donatello’s body was laying on the ground, smoke lingering from his body. No, no, no, no. Leo ran as fast as he could, using his sword on everything that was in his way.
“Don, Don, please be alive, please”, Leo was afraid to touch his brother, who was covered in wounds. But he was breathing. For now.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, don’t worry”, Leo said, trying to calm his racing head. “We will get you home.”
Blood, so much blood. Leo could smell the burn.
“Raph! Mikey!” Leo yelled. “We have to go!” He couldn’t see them, but he heard them agreeing. “O-okay Donnie, what do we do? How- how we get home?”
Leo felt the tears forming. Fuck. How could he let this happen? Donnie had not explained how to get back home.
Mikey and Raph had reached them finally, covered in blood and bruises. They couldn’t do anything but try to fight off the people attacking them.
Leo took the portal device from Donnie and looked at it. There was an extra button with a home symbol on it. Leo felt a sense of relief.
Thank god Donnie knew they were a bunch of idiots.
They got home, everything was loud, rushed. Master Splinter took care of Donnie with Mikey and April. Leo wanted to go inside but Raph stopped him.
“I don’t think it’s good for you to be there right now.”
Leo wanted to argue with him but there was no point. It was still hard to think straight. His mind was on the battlefield.
Leo sat down on the ground, his heart pounding heavy like he was still running. Raph stood next to him. The tension was insufferable.
“You know master Splinter has always been worried about Usagi.”
“Is that big of a surprise for you? Well, I guess he hid it pretty well from you since you would have not listened in the first place.”
“Why are you telling this now?”
“Because I want you to stop this shit. Master Splinter is right. Usagi comes from a world we don’t know. He is a trained soldier. You have to stop this nonsense before one of us dies. We don’t know him.”
“Do you? Do you really or are you just that delusional?”
“No I fuckin’ won’t before you get it in your thick head. If you really knew him and he could be trusted, he would’ve told about that betrayal plan. He knew you would’ve helped him but he did what he fuckin’ did. ”
The anger was burning through Leo but he couldn’t get up. It hurt to hear what everybody really thought about Usagi.
“You have nothin’ to say?” Raph spitted.
After so many painful hours waiting, April finally came to announce that Donnie was going to live.
“He’s just now unconscious and highly medicated. He’s gonna be in pain for a long time. And who knows what that amount of electricity did to his nervous system.”
Leo went inside the room and took a look at Donatello, covered in bandages and all kind of tubes. The worst had not happened. Not yet.
Master Splinter was sitting next to him, looking at Don with a concern. He turned his head only when Leo started to talk.
“I need to talk to you, master Splinter”, Leo said. The initial anger had already faded and he started to feel numb from all the emotions. Master Splinter got up to his shaky legs.
“You are right, my son. But not here, we need to let Donatello rest. Let’s go to my meditation room.”
“So, what did you want to talk about?” master Splinter said calmly as they sat down.
“Is it true that you hate Usagi?”
Master Splinter was not shaken by the question. It was like he knew it was coming.
“Hate is a strong word, my son and I would use it more carefully. I never hated him but also, I never truly trusted him. First, not because of his character: he was as innocent boy as you were. But the environment he was raised in shaped what kind of man he grew up to be. The realm is not something to take slightly. It is a strict military society and the citizens are known to be loyal to their realm.”
“Usagi is different. He always said he hated being there.”
“People there are told from a very young age that they need to protect their realm and die for it. Even the most determined mind can fold under enough pressure, my son. He may have realized how strong and dangerous you had become and that the best for his realm was to eliminate you and the rest of us. He may have not be able to kill you yourself but he put his feelings aside to make somebody else kill you. Only a person with a heart of ice could do that.”
“You don’t know that. I have to save him.”
Leo looked at him, shocked.
“I know what you want to do. But you’re going down your old path, my son”, Master Splinter’s words cut like the blade. Leo could barely look at his father’s disappointed face.
“You are not to order me anymore. You’ve made it clear enough for years now that I’m the one taking the responsibility of everyone. I am the head of this house. I make the calls.”
“I may have miscalculated the level of responsibility you were ready to take on, my son. I thought encounters with Shredder had thought you enough. You are doing horrible decisions and not thinking about the consequences for your family.”
Leo stared at his father. It was like every word coming from his mouth was meant to break the last pieces of his soul. But he did not feel anger. He did not feel sadness. There was just the unpleasant truth in front of him.
“Usagi is my family”, Leo said as he stood up, looking down on his father. He walked away, went to his room and packed rushly the few items he thought he might need. He needed nothing. He deserved nothing.
He went to the portal machine and avoided Raph and Mikey. They would try to stop him. No matter how much they hated him, they wouldn’t let him leave to a whole other realm alone. He could not stand to see Mikey even though he would’ve needed that one last hug from him. But he couldn’t bare anything else happen to them, not because of him.
The machine wasn’t hard to set up. Donnie had left some manuals laying around. Leo tried to find the other crystals to take them with him but couldn’t find them. Others probably still had them on. Leo packed the manuals in his backpack so at least Raph and Mikey couldn’t immediately follow him.
He took a last look on the door and imagined his brothers in the living room. They would manage.
He had to keep everyone he loved safe. That’s what he had to do. That was his purpose. To save everyone. Alone.
I hope you enjoyed the first 4 chapters :) Let's see how Leo will manage to survive in the realm in the next issue!
