Mommy!Leo Epicfic Part zee Secondeth!
Wheee! I did it! I actually managed to get a fic done when I said I would. I'm proud of myself, yes I am.
Anyway, I should probably warn you that this chapter is a little bit darker than the last one, but it's important to the plot! Really! It's not just because I like to torture Leo!
Oh, just read the silly thing.
Patching the Trousers
Or: This is entirely Kay the Cricketed’s fault, because yes, dammit, Leo needs babies.
Concept: Take other mutant turtles that have shown up in the various TMNT universes. Shrink them. Put them in a box. Put the box in Leo’s room. Insist that the baby!turtles call him “mommy”. Also, Leonardo does a lot of dimension hopping, so let’s see how many plot holes we can chuck him through before he gets airsick.
Timeline: Patchwork, but mostly based on the end of Fast Forward and heavily biased towards the 2003 cartoon and the new 2007 movie. The new characters that show up and some of the events described are taken from both movies and spin-offs.
Pairing: April/Casey, Raphael/Leonardo, Michelangelo/Donatello, some hints of OT4, and I wanna introduce Splinter to Casey’s Mom. I think that I’ll make Mrs. Jones/Splinter my new crack!OTP.
Warnings: Crack leik whoa, slash, turtlecest, mommy!Leo, and author insertions cleverly disguised as various OC’s.
Summary: It was a bit sad that they had to leave Cody behind, but they were finally going home, back to their own time. Things were finally going right. But then well… you know the expression, you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family? Thanks to the Dark Turtle Clones the Ninja Turtle’s trip through time experiences some turbulence. They make it back home in one piece, but realize that something has gone awry. Leonardo’s missing, he’s been lost in Time and there’s a pretty good chance that the Dark Clones followed him. So now Leo’s lost who knows when, and he’s trapped alone with their enemy. This cannot be a good thing. Oh, and Leo needs more tea if he’s going to survive this madness with his sanity intact.
XD-XP
RECAP:
Of course, that is when the earth decided to open up and swallow them both.
It was typical, Leonardo thought as he grabbed a shrieking Venus by the hand and pulled her close as they fell through the rip in space-time that had opened up under the futon, now he would never be able to convince Venus that he was not her mother.
Maybe he could convince his brothers it was a term for father from a little used dialect of Mandarin?
(He was also thankful, in the corner of his mind not devoted to dreading his brothers upcoming teasing or trying to anticipate where he would land next, that he had strapped Chung I’s magic scrolls to his belt and that the boys would be dragged along with him. Really. Taking care of five children was hard enough even without throwing random bouts of inter-dimensional time travel into the mix. Had he offended some Chinese god in a past life or something?)
Tsuzuku…
XD-XP
Sequence the Second: Congratulations on This Joyous Occasion!
XD-XP
Leonardo managed to land on his feet this time, and spared a small moment to feel a just little bit proud of that fact. He was improving. It was only his third time being yanked around through worlds like this and not only was he still conscious, but he had also remained upright! Go him.
Venus squirmed in his arms and he put her down, taking a look around as he did so. It seemed that this time he had landed in the remains of an old rave spot. Only recently abandoned, from the lingering smell of smoke (and other less savoury things), which remained on the air. He and his brothers had spied on a few of the clubs while they were in use, and used the old buildings themselves when the raver’s had moved on. Hotspots like this one had used to be had to be moved frequently in order to avoid being busted by the cops. A valid worry, the partygoers were usually so intoxicated on various poisons that the appearance of traditionally armed five-foot ninja turtles would not shock them. (Like that one time when they were thirteen and Mikey had been involved in that incident with the pineapples and a rather unfortunate Goths nipple ring… and Leonardo had been sure he had purged that memory. Back to the meditation mats for him.)
A snuffle came from one of the darker corners of the warehouse and Leonardo tensed as he peered into the shadows, trying to make out what was making the noise.
There!
Movement along the far wall, too small to be a human, but too large to be vermin… Leonardo looked at Venus, who was still standing next to him, clinging to his weapons belt. He sighed, wondering over the best way to deal with this.
“Venus-chan?” Leonardo winced at the loudness of his voice in the silence, even whispering. He was topside, in a city, with children. Master Splinter had never let them aboveground while they were as young as Venus, and when he did take them scavenging near the upper levels he had enforced a strict ‘no-noise’ policy. He felt like he was breaking some huge unwritten rule of the cosmos. Thou shalt not bringeth mutants of less than ten summers aboveground, especially not during daylight hours, you moron.
“Yes, Mama?” Venus was just as quiet, though her voice seemed just as shattering. Leonardo hid a grimace.
“Can you check and see if your brothers are here?” Leonardo gestured at the wall opposite the movement, “I’m going to check the other side of the room. They might be hiding, so look carefully.”
“Yes Mama!” Venus said, eyes shining with curiosity as her cautiousness receded without the appearance of an immediate threat. She scampered off to the other side of the warehouse, calling the boys names.
Leonardo quickly crossed to where he had noticed the movement and noises coming from, intending to calm his paranoia by proving that it was just a stray cat or something. His search turned up two empty hand-held fire extinguishers, a pile of mostly-clean towels used to wipe down the bar top and a lot of broken furniture. He was about to consider the matter moot - the animal must have been scared off and run - when he heard another whimper. Leonardo bypassed an utterly flattened ten-foot tall subwoofer, and felt his heart seize in his chest.
A baby turtle stared back at him, dark eyes huge and terrified in his grey-green face. But next to him…
Oh by all the merciful kami in the heavens and the dragon kings under the waves, next to the little turtle was a nightmare sight that would haunt the eldest son of the Hamato clan for many nights to come. Another small body lay crumpled on the cement, brown fur stained dark. A puppy, it looked like a wolf although Leonardo could not be certain of it, barely past the first stages of mutation… and it would never get any further.
All he could think was, ‘I’m glad I made Venus go to the other side of the building. I wouldn’t have wanted her to see this.’
For a long moment Leonardo could only stare at the sad little pile of fur. There was nothing he could do; the child had… passed beyond this world. With a heavy sigh he wrapped the small, broken body in one of the old bar towels he had fished out of the wreckage earlier and placed then pathetic bundle against the far wall of the empty dance club, under a pile of debris where the children would not find it. He would come back and bury the poor thing later, for now he turned his attention on the one he could help.
The little snapper squalled, screeching in protest and fear when Leonardo picked him up. The infant turtle was badly bruised. Judging by the remains of the little canine mutant, and the condition of the battered but living baby he held, they had both been trampled. The foot shaped bruises developing on tender green skin lent credit to the theory.
“You had best thank the spirits that you’re a turtle little one.” Leonardo solemnly informed the turtle tot, who sniffled, the very picture of mini turtle misery. “Your shell seems to have saved you from the worst of it. I suppose it’s a good thing you’re still young enough to pull your head into your shell, otherwise you might’ve gotten you head bashed in as well.”
Leonardo kept his voice to a soothing murmur as he checked the toddler over for serious injuries. Fortunately it looked to him as if the child had instinctively pulled into his overlarge shell before anything more than large bruises had been inflicted. It was horrifying, what the little one must have suffered through, all alone with the body of a dead wolf infant. The baby snapper was hardly big enough to crawl, forget about standing upright until his legs had finished mutating. Right now the child was just finishing the mutation that allowed him the ability to walk on two legs.
“Mama!” Venus came scrambling over the debris.
“Venus, stay on the floor!” Leonardo cried as he stood and hurried over to her, not wanting her to be cut on the wreckage, “Please, be careful. There could be broken glass or worse things in there, don’t climb on it.”
“I’m sorry Mama.” Venus looked contrite, “But the boys aren’t here and what is that?”
“I found him over by the stage.” Leonardo sighed as his explanation was ignored in favour of being pulled down until Venus could see the baby clearly.
“Oh! He’s so little! Mama, look at how small his hands are!” Venus cooed as she tickled the baby, whose fussing stopped as he starred at Venus with equal fascination. Venus looked up at Leonardo with shining eyes, “What’s his name, Mama?”
“I don’t know, Venus-chan, why don’t we ask him?” Leonardo looked down at the little turtle in his arms, “I don’t suppose you’re old enough to be talking yet? You’re certainly big enough. Do you have a name?”
“Mama!” The baby squealed, reaching for Leonardo’s face.
“Oh hell no.” Leonardo muttered, determined not to let another child call him mother if he could stop it. (He had since given up on Venus. She wanted a mother, not another father. She would call him what she would call him, and neither gender-convention nor sincere protests would gainsay her.)
“Mama?” Asked the baby, tilting his head to one side.
“Do you have a name?” Leonardo asked again, speaking slowly. The little snapper just tilted his head to the other side and gazed adoringly up at Leonardo. A niggling voice in the back of his head (it sounded vaguely like Donatello) was nattering on about imprinting. The older turtle sighed. “I’ll take that as a no.”
“You should give him a name Mama.” Venus suggested as she tickled one little foot, making the baby kick and giggle. She looked up at Leonardo, “Just like you gave me.”
“I suppose I should.” Leonardo sighed again and looked down at the infant for a long moment, mind whirling with possibilities. “What do you think of the name Titian? Hmm, Titian-kun?”
“Tokka!” The newly named Titian crowed, making Leonardo wince.
“Close enough.” The blue clad turtle shook his head, “Just don’t blame me later if you decide the nickname is stupid, alright Tokka?”
The naming crisis dealt with, Leonardo ensconced Venus and Titian in a small room that had probably been used to store coats, but was now one of the few places in the building not littered with broken debris. He took the time to snap a spare set of cuffs to the baby, just in case. Turning to leave, Leonardo hesitated at the door, glancing back at his daughter and the baby. Time was a finite resource, hopefully the boys would have had the sense to hide themselves, but…
“Venus-chan, I need you to watch Titian-kun for me while I go get your brothers.” Leonardo said as he hovered midway between guarding and searching, “I shouldn’t be gone long, but I don’t know how long it will take to find them. So I need you to promise me you won’t leave this room unless someone comes. If that happens I need you to hide.”
The memory of the baby wolf hovered in front of his eyes before he banished it. What kind on world had they landed in?
“It’s alright Mama!” Venus reassured him, “I’ll take good care of Titian! You’ll see. Go get the others, they’ve probably gotten in trouble by now.”
“You’re right.” Leonardo smiled wanly, “I’ll go as fast as I can.”
“Be careful Mama!” Venus called to him as he left.
“I will.” Leonardo promised before carefully wedging the door shut and leaving the building.
Once outside he hid himself in a convenient patch of shadows and considered things carefully. A tiny voice in the back of his head was screaming about time running out, but he ignored it in favour of deep breaths and a calm centre. If he and Venus had landed in there, and assuming that the distance between he and the children had remained the same, then the boys should be no more than a few hundred meters in… that direction.
Taking to the rooftops, Leonardo felt his heart skip as he gazed upon New York’s familiar skyline. For a moment, he dared to think that he might have found his own world. Some things were wrong though; the Saki skyscraper was missing, as was the Utroms Earth base tower, and he realized that this was yet another alternate world, though one more painfully familiar than the last two.
The alleyways blurred beneath him as he searched, and he wondered how he was supposed to attracted the boys attention without attracting human attention… especially the kind of human attention that trampled little babies underfoot and just left them in abandoned warehouses. He would be glad to leave this world behind, if only to get some distance from the memory.
A commotion a few streets over to his right attracted his attention, and he gratefully let his focus shift from his dark thoughts to an external threat. Peering down carefully he watched as some stereotypical street punks fought a losing battle against a dark haired man in a hockey mask and a… pizza delivery boy? From the golf bag filled with the sticks, clubs and bats of various ball sports, Leonardo could only assume he was watching this worlds version of Casey Jones. Well, at least he was not a woman, but who the hell was the kid?
The last of the street gang joined their fellows in either merciful unconsciousness outright retreat, Casey - and that was defiantly Casey Jones - shouting insults about their punitive parentage after them. Casey was picking up a cricket bat (Casey Jones? Playing cricket?) and inspecting it for damage, but the boy was heading further into the alley.
“Hey, Keno! Where are you going kid?” Casey called when he noticed the boy walking deeper into the shadows, “You know Raph’ll have my hide if you get hurt.”
“I can take care of myself Casey! I fought against the Foot too, remember?” The kid, Keno, shot back without looking, searching the back of the alley, “Besides, I thought I saw something moving back here. Did you notice how the gang had crowded in here? I want to make sure they didn’t dump somebody in the trash, or chase some poor kid down here.”
“Yer right.” Casey said after a minute, pushing up his mask, “It did look like they chased someone in here, didn’t it.”
Leonardo was frozen in place above them, mind whirling with the implications of what he had heard. It seemed like he had found himself in a world with some correlation to his own, much like the first where he had watched other versions of his brothers and himself fight the Shredder. Leonardo did not recognize the boy, Keno, but apparently he was one of Raphael’s strays. No matter what world, it seemed that Raphael retained his soft spot for troubled kids.
A flicker of movement in the corner of his eye and his breath caught. Those were his boys! He watched as Botticelli squirmed again, rustling the trash bags around him. Leonardo shook his head. That boy, it seemed that some things were genetic after all. At least it was a reasonable friendly force the kids were hiding from, and not someone truly dangerous to their safety.
Still, if he wanted to avoid complications, it would probably be best if they were seen as little as possible.
Good thing he was a ninja.
Approximately three smoke pellets, two shoves into a dumpster (with accompanying profanity) and four quick boosts up the fire escape later they were well on their way to completing that goal. Leonardo did not allow them to stop moving until they were several buildings away and hidden behind a large enough set of vents.
“Are you boys okay?” Leonardo asked, visually checking them over despite protests to the contrary, “I’m sorry it took so long to find you. Now, tell me what happened.”
In retrospect, Leonardo really should have known better than to ask.
“We were puttin’ the dishes in the kitchen like you told us to -” Ghiberti started off.
“Then the floor went all yellow and ATE us!” Botticelli cut in.
“Yeah! And we went ‘round and ‘round and ‘round -” Uccello illustrated with his arms.
“And we landed over there somewhere.” Masaccio pointed near the mouth of the alley where Leonardo had found them.
“And there were HUMANS all OVER the place!” Botticelli threw his arms open wide to show how the humans had been all around them.
“So we hid like you told us we should when we see humans -” Masaccio piped up.
“Even though we totally could have taken care of them.” Ghiberti chimed in.
“But those stinky humans chased us into that place where you found us!” Botticelli looked outraged.
“And then those other humans showed up and they started fighting!” Uccello bounced in excitement and left over adrenalin.
“And that’s what happened.” Masaccio concluded.
The entire explanation had taken less than a minute. Leonardo blinked. The boys blinked back at him.
“You were seen?” Leonardo asked, grasping one of the important points, “By humans?”
“Well, kinda.” Masaccio admitted, “But not really.”
“Yeah, we ran and hid really, really fast!” Botticelli reassured Leonardo.
“Besides, they’re all sleeping now.” Uccello noted.
“Wish I coulda helped ‘em sleep.” Ghiberti sulked.
“Ah.” Leonardo muttered, Ghiberti was really too much like Raphael sometimes, “Well, as long as you didn’t get hurt. Let’s get back to your sister before something happens to her too.”
“Okay!” The agreement came in four-part chorus.
A few minutes and one close call with a loose brick later the five turtles slipped back into the abandoned warehouse cum destitute dance club. Motioning for the boys to be quiet, left them hidden in the shadows for a minute as he scouted around to make sure they had not been followed and that no one had entered the place while he had been gone. Satisfied that they were safe for the moment Leonardo led them to the room where he had left Venus and Titian.
“Venus-chan? It’s me.” Leonardo called softly as he slid the door open.
“Mama!” Venus cried out in relief, looking up from where she had been playing with the baby. “You found the boys!”
“Mei-mei!” The boys cheered as they pushed past Leonardo into the room.
Shaking his head, Leonardo entered the room at a more sedate pace and shut the door behind him. The boys had crowed around Venus, staring curiously at Titian. The baby turtle was returning their intent inspection with equal fervour.
“Hey Ma!” Botticelli called out, and Leonardo mentally threw up his hands in surrender. There was no helping it. Apparently he was doomed to be a mother. “Who’s this?”
“His name is Titian.” Leonardo told him, including the rest of the boys in the introduction, “I found him when he arrived here. He’d been abandoned, so I decided that he would come with us.”
“Does this mean he’s our brother too?” Masaccio asked.
“Yes it does.” Leonardo said firmly.
“Yay!” Botticelli cheered, “Someone else gets to be the baby!”
“Yes, Bo.” Leonardo could not help laughing at that, “I suppose it does.”
The rest of the day passed peacefully. Leonardo went out once to fetch food, and soon after dark they all settled down to sleep off the stress of the day. Rousing enough to remind them to stay in the building when the children woke up and wanted to play, Leonardo slept with one ear open for trouble. It was later that night when Leonardo was woken completely from his doze by the sound of voices.
Familiar voices. His brother’s voices.
“Oh shell. Not again.” Leonardo sub-vocalized to himself, getting to his feet. He looked around the room, the kids were missing. Probably playing in the main room, his curse had more feeling this time. “Shell!”
Leonardo slipped through the shadows, tracking his brother’s copies by all of the noise they were making. Honestly, they were so loud it was a wonder if they were making any sort of effort stealth. Leonardo was briefly glad that he had explained to the children about being in the wrong world. They would hide from these strange turtles just as readily as they would hide from humans.
“Duuuuuude.” That was a Mikey whine, “Why are we wasting our time here?”
“For the last time, Mikey.” The other Leonardo sounded a little annoyed, “We’re here because Casey and Keno had some ninja trouble earlier today, and I want to make sure that the Foot aren’t up to their old tricks again.”
“But why here?” Mikey wanted to know.
“Because, knumbskull.” Ah Raph, ever a paragon of tact, “The ninja action happened near here. And Fearless Leader wants to check this place out because it was where we had that last fight with the Shredder.”
“Oh.” Leonardo could see them now, picking their way over the busted equipment near the stage. The Mikey hopped up to sit on the edge, “That makes sense.”
“Uh, guys?” Their Donatello sounded strange, more surprised than the gentle chiding Leonardo had been expecting. “I think you should take a look at this.”
“At what?” His Leo asked.
Wordlessly their Donnie pulled a stricken looking Venus out of hiding. Her eyes were wide and she clutched Titian to the top of her chest.
“What the?” Their Raph sounded shocked, but that would change soon, “Another one of the Foot’s experiments gone wrong?”
And there was the anger. The sai-wielding turtle was stomping over to loom above Venus, growling. The little girl whimpered a little and seemed to shrink into herself, curling protectively around the baby, and Leonardo hissed. Oh, image of his little brother or not that was just not on! Who did this creep think he was, threatening Leonardo’s daughter?
Leonardo stepped out of hiding unnoticed, though not for long. He meant to shout, but instead he made a sound that was part whistle, part trill, and part snarl. Whatever it was, it was loud and attention grabbing. The boys broke cover and darted over to stand behind him, huddled together but glaring at the interlopers.
Venus tried to do the same but was prevented when the other Raph grabbed her arm.
“What the heck is goin’ on here?” The red clad turtle growled.
Leonardo replied with a precisely aimed shuriken. The angry turtle dropped Venus’s arm and dogged the missile. Venus scrambled away.
“Why the heck does this guy look like Leo?” This worlds Mikey felt the need to ask.
“I have no idea.” The other Leo said grimly, “But I intend to find out.”
“It could be a clone.” Came their Donnie’s suggestion, “I mean, look at what he’s wearing.”
Leonardo ignored them, knowing he must look strange to them in his environmental regulator.
“Venus, bring Titian over here.” He commanded, speaking for the first time.
“Yes, Mama.” She answered, hurrying over, skirting the other adult turtles warily. She made it to her brothers without incident.
There was a moment of perfect silence. The shouts and threats and recriminations stopped, but Leonardo knew better than to expect reprieve. The worst was yet to come.
Slowly this worlds Raphael turned to Leonardo’s counterpart, “Something you maybe want to tell us Leo?”
The other Leonardo made a strange, strangled sound of denial.
“Dude!” The Michelangelo screeched, “Are you saying that this freaky Leo clone is a chick?”
“With six children, none the less.” The Donatello mused, looking contemplative.
Leonardo knew that it would only get worse, and he gave his mortified counterpart a look of perfect sympathy and understanding.
It should be noted that in the history of the universe there have been many people in highly embarrassing situations that have wished for the earth to open up and swallow them in order to end their torment. However, physics being what they are it rarely ever happens that this specific desire is fulfilled, and they are left to suffer without reprieve. As it stands, Hamato Leonardo of Earth-3 is one of the few beings to have that specific wish granted.
Okay, given it was actually a multidimensional portal through space-time, and it was leaning up at a forty-three degree angle, but let us not argue semantics right now.
XD-XP
Leonardo landed and his feet and looked around as the children righted themselves. High, vaulted, gothic architecture with suspiciously imposing displays of archaic weaponry and antiques.
“Um, Mama?” Uccello sounded worried, “What is that?”
Leonardo turned around. A huge circle-alter made of stone, carved with nasty looking runes and surrounded by distressingly solid looking containment tubes. Ferocious roars and bangs were coming from inside the tubes. On a hunch, Leonardo walked up to the closest one and looked inside.
Leonardo was slumped on the bottom of the tube.
“Right.” Leonardo said after a moment, jumping the short distance back to the floor, “We are not staying here.”
Obligingly, a portal opened up about three feet from the ground.
“That will work.” Leonardo said after a minute and led the kids through.
XD-XP
The next world they landed in seemed normal enough. Leonardo managed to find them a safe place to live in order to wait out their stay. Things stayed peaceful for a few days until he received a surprise visitor one night after the children had been put to bed.
“Hullo. You’d be Hamato Leonardo-san of Earth-3 then, eh?”
Leonardo whirled around, ninjaken whistling out of their sheaths with speed previously only seen in the nightmares of various Foot Ninja. There was an unfamiliar woman in his kitchen, standing a carefully measured distance away. Close enough for polite conversation, but not near enough to be intruding on his personal space, and inside his striking range while being outside of hers.
“Who are you?” Leonardo growled, barely checking the urge to cut first and ask questions later. Now was not the time to be channelling Raphael, not with the hatchlings in the next room.
“Easy there, luv. I come in peace.” While she was talking Leonardo was sizing her up, and she knew it too, from the vaguely amused expression she wore. Humanoid, rather emphatically female, glittery white skin, glowing psychedelic eyes, prismatic gold hair and similarly coloured ear tufts. Metallic wings that looked like a cross of avian and insect, she could probably hover as well as fly. Wearing a robe vestment that seemed to be entirely made up of slightly translucent veils of varying sizes and hues held together with an impossible to determine number of safety pins. She did not look like a threat. She looked like a stoned Trekkies wet dream. “Would you like me to put my hands on the wall and assume the position then?”
“What?” Leonardo sputtered as the intruder tossed him a saucy wink and giggling flirtatiously. “No! I want you to tell me what you’re doing here and what you want!”
“D’accord.” She said folding her hands into her sleeves, and Leonardo noticed that inch-long gold talons tipped her fingers. “Shall we sit down? I think your tea is done. Really, is this any way to thank the one who stopped your impromptu whirlwind tour of the Multiverse?”
“That was you?” Blinking Leonardo shook his head, sheathing his swords but remaining wary. The hatchlings room had no windows or ‘convenient’ air ducts. Not very good for circulation, but it calmed his nerves that no one could get in or out of the bedroom with him seeing. It was safe enough to indulge his unexpected guest, and besides, the tea really was ready.
Not a minute later they were both seated at Leonardo’s functional little table, holding mugs of jasmine tea.
“Now then.” Leonardo said grimly once the bare social necessities were over with, “Who are you and why are you here?”
“Mm. Right. My name is Retkon, and I’m a professional Time Seamstress.” She smiled briefly, “And I’m here because of you.”
“A Timestress?” Leonardo frowned, not liking where the conversation seemed to be going, “Like Renet?”
“Gods no!” Retkon snorted into her teacup, “Not anything like that bubble head, no offence to his Lordship Sims, but I’m an entirely difference creature all together.”
“What do you mean?” Leonardo was slowly beginning to relax, it almost seemed that for once in his life the stranger-who-dropped-in-unannounced-and-knew-his-name was not out to get him.
“Well, y’see, it’s mostly a matter of semantics. But it’s all in the name really.” Retkon shrugged eloquently. She really had the most expressive body language Leonardo had ever seen. You would need more than a gag to shut this woman up, in fact, Leonardo figured it would require a full body cast to keep her from expressing an opinion. He had never seen anyone get so much work out of an eyebrow before. And she was still talking. How nice, today seemed to be a day of miracles, he was actually getting a complete explanation for once. “You see… the fact is you mistook me. I’m not a Timestress. Rather superfluous job that. Mostly involves doing Lord Sims dusting and wearing very silly hats.”
“Lord Sims?” Leonardo echoed, faintly amused.
“What?” She paused to think, “Oh yes. Just a little pun, rather clever, eh what?”
“Hm.” Leo was noncommittal, but he might just not have gotten the joke.
“Right then, moving on.” Retkon flapped her hand dismissively, “Difference is I’m a Time Seamstress. I patch up holes the Trousers, tighten the seams, make certain that nothing’s gone falling through gaps in the pockets and so on. That sort of thing. It’s all quantum, really.”
“Excuse me, but, trousers?” Leonardo looked equal parts intrigued and appalled behind his solemn-ninja expression. It was all in the corners of his eyes and mouth.
“Right then, time for a lesson in the basics of the theory of temporal mechanics it seems.” She grinned and settled into a lecture, gesturing with her hands to illustrate. “I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase ‘the fabric of reality’ before, eh?”
“I have.” Leonardo replied to her expectant look, “Please continue.”
“Well the ‘fabric’ of Time is best described as a pair of Trousers.” Retkon snickered at Leonardo’s blank look, “Yes, like a pair of pants. It goes like this y’see, any given moment, say this one for example, could be considered the waistband, keeping together until you get to a pivotal moment where a choice has to be made. Now when you make that choice say, between kicking me out or sitting down to have tea, the Trousers split into Legs, one Leg is this one and in the other Leg you threw me out the window. The more unlikely a choice is, the weaker the seams are for that particular Leg.”
“I see.” Leonardo mused, watching the glittery visitor over his teacup.
“Of course, you can’t limit the analogy to human literalism.” Retkon said airily, “The Trousers have an infinite number of Legs, which continue to split into infinitely more Trouser Legs. If you tried to make a representation on the physical plane you’d end up with pants that only Nyartholep could wear.”
“No, I understand what you’re saying.” Leonardo reassured her, “It’s not just a matter of left or right, but also up, down, back, and forwards.”
“Not to mention fifty-two degrees South-South-East at a twenty-three degree angle incline.” Retkon grinned agreeably, inviting Leonardo to share the joke, “But yes, that’s the idea at it’s most basic.”
“And you job is what?” Leonardo asked instead, “To darn the tears?”
“That’s about right.” Retkon nodded, “While Lord Sims and his girl take care not to let all of space-time go messily exploding all over creation, I take care of the smaller stuff. Like say, locating temporally misplaced overprotective ninja turtles with mother hen tendencies and getting them back to the timeline where they belong?”
“But.” Leonardo narrowed his eyes at Retkon, whose mobile face was a panorama of innocent good intentions, “If that were the case, wouldn’t you have shown up earlier to fix my families little time travel problem, instead of waiting for us to deal with it ourselves?”
“Eheh. Who’s a clever peanut, then?” Retkon’s face went carefully blank before she grinned ruefully at Leonardo, the expression more real than the others she had worn over the course of the conversation, “Truth of the matter is, most times I don’t really have to put a direct hand in. Time travel mishaps tend to sort themselves out one way or another. And unless we’ve caused it, the people in my line of work tend to ignore things like independent Time travel unless it threatens to damage reality.”
“So what you’re saying,” Leonardo said slowly, “Is that my family being randomly shot one hundred years into the future was not a threat to you but my being here - wherever here is - is a bad thing?”
“Er, yeah. About that.” Retkon had the grace to look a bit sheepish, “Even you being here wouldn’t be a big deal if you hadn’t managed to land yourself in this particular Leg of Time.”
“Alright, I’ll bite.” Leonardo said grimly after a moment of silence, “What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s unravelling.” Leonardo stared at her, unblinking, and Retkon gave him a small apologetic smile, “Look, I apologise for dumping this on you but you managed to land yourself in one of the worst Legs possible.”
“How so?” Leonardo finally managed to ask.
“Tang Shen never died, Yoshi never left Japan, and TCRI never set up an office here.” Retkon listed succinctly.
“Which means that in this world, my brothers and I never existed.” Leonardo interpreted, speaking softly as he considered the thought. He and his brothers had mentioned the possibility before; about what the world would have been like if Splinter’s beloved Master Yoshi had lived. But the thought that he and his brothers, his dear brothers, not existing… being nothing more that pet turtles in a bowl, that it was real, and not just a hypothetical situation… well. It gave Leonardo chills.
“Yes. Well actually no.” Retkon said simply in reply.
“Why is this er, leg unravelling?” Leonardo asked quietly.
“Look,” Retkon sighed, “I don’t want you to feel guilty or anything, because it’s not your fault at all. Nor is it your brothers. Things are fixed so that people from the same temporal line run at the same speed, and as intelligent as your younger brother is, you haven’t got the, pardon the pun, time left to wait for him to locate you.”
Leonardo was silent, waiting patiently for her to get to the point. Retkon sighed again.
“It’s because you’re here at all.” She said softly, eyes projecting sympathy, “I’m sure you can guess where your physical counterpart here in this world is, but in Japan there is also a Hamato Li, eldest of the four Hamato grandsons, who brings great honour to his grandfathers line.”
“What?” Leonardo froze, “What do you mean?”
“Listen,” Retkon’s voice was gentle, her words chosen carefully, “You and your brothers are your father’s sons, even though you were not born to him, and your father feels much the same about his master. That’s because for all intents and purposes, you are. The people who carry the Hamato name in this Leg are much the same souls as those who carry it in your own. And it is because of this fact that this Leg is becoming unstable. The Entropy Cascade effect is tearing the fabric, and your acting a bit like a sharp rock constantly rubbing against the fabric. Eventually the knee is going to get a hole worn in it, because souls are unique, and having two of you here means that the balance is thrown off. This reality was weak to begin with, because ninety-nine point nine percent of the time Hamato Yoshi ends up in New York somehow. Right now you’ve got your analogous mortal shell in one place, your spirit in another and then you’re sitting here body-and-soul in another place. The Trousers are getting a bit twisted and threadbare because of that.”
“Thus unravelling the fabric.” Leonardo frowned, considering it, “I suppose it makes sense.”
“Mm.” She said into her cup.
“And it’s nice to know that my brothers and I still exist in a way.” A brief smile flickered on his face, “Even if it is as humans.”
“Heh. I hear ya. Yer all pretty damn cute as humans too, thought a bit short for my tastes.” Retkon snickered, a bit before composing herself again, “Right then, look, most of the time the failsafe protocols my department set up prevents things like this from happening. You can travel within your own Leg of time and it’s braches with something close to impunity.”
“Why is that?” Leonardo asked, remembering the time storm and facing the Shredder while trying to protect Cody.
“Because you belong in that Temporal Leg, and just existing, not matter how far up or down in it you are, won’t and can’t do any damage.” Retkon chewed her lip for a moment, “See, the problem is that this world is similar to your own but not the same. If you had landed in a world completely removed from your own, like your friend Usagi’s, where you don’t exist in any aspect at all, you’d be fine. It would be the same if you’d landed in any of the worlds where you and your brothers are giant, mutated turtles. But this place is both too close but not far enough removed from your reality of origin.”
“And that’s bad?” Leonardo interjected.
“Yeah.” Retkon nodded, “That’s bad. Like trying to push an oval peg into a circular hole. If you push it long enough you can wear down the peg until it fits, but it just doesn’t quite work and something inevitably ends up breaking.”
“Well, this has been enlightening.” Leonardo said, finishing his now lukewarm tea, “So now that my existence has threatened the end of this world as we know it, what happens next?”
“Well, that’s what I’m here for really.” Retkon said, sitting back in her chair, “My job is to both fix that damage and find the cause, that being you in this case.”
“And how are you planning on fixing it?” Leonardo asked warily, if this woman intended to wipe them from existence then they were going to have words.
“I haven’t got a whole lot of what you might call ultimate cosmic power - though I do have a very nice house on the seventh level of Null Time, great view - anyway, I have enough skill to make up for it. What I’m gonna do with you is patch you over to a world where you won’t be a victim of casualty.” Retkon’s hands traced parabola and loops in the air, “And as an added bonus I’ll toss in changing les petites temporal frequencies to run on the same wavelength as yours so you won’t have to worry about any random changes in age, as well as putting up a signal to get your rather frantically searching little brothers moving in the right direction.”
“Why can’t you just send me home?” Leonardo had to know.
“Too much interference.” Retkon told him with a shrug, “Stable places like Earth-3 and the Battle Nexus are resistant to my powers, since I’m stronger when reality is a bit more fluid. And before you ask, no, I can’t just ask Lord Sims to send you home either, because by the time I filled out all the paperwork, arranged an appointment, got in to see him and explained the situation your shell will have turned grey. It’s faster and easier just to do it my way.”
“The place you send me isn’t going to be falling apart too, is it?” Leonardo knew it paid to be cautious.
“Nah, don’t worry.” Retkon flapped a hand at him, “I’ll be sending you to a stable reality. It’ll just have to be one where my powers are applicable.”
“May I make a request?” Leonardo asked slowly, turning a tough over in his head.
“Sure thing.” She nodded for him to continue.
“Try to find a place where I won’t have to worry about being eaten or dissected, please.” Leonardo was tired of landing in the middle of crisis after crisis.
“You don’t ask for much, do you?” Retkon grinned, “I’ll do my best. Though I can guarantee that I won’t drop you anyplace dangerous.”
“Define dangerous.” Leonardo narrowed his eyes.
“No wars, apocalypse, or megalomaniac villains.” Retkon listed, ticking each item off on her fingers.
“I suppose that will have to do.” He sighed.
“Perfect! We have an accord!” Retkon clapped her hands. “Off you go then!”
“Wait! You mean right now!” Leonardo protested.
But it was too late, reality was already twisting and fading around him. Leonardo had to close his eyes to keep from getting sick at the contortions the world was making.
When he opened his eyes again, Leonardo found himself standing in the middle of what seemed to be a park of some kind. Tucked in an out of the way corner of the park, Leonardo and the turtle tots, awakened by the dimensional shift, could see that the people walking along the paths were not human. Instead, they looked an awful lot like turtles.
One of the larger specimens stopped as he walked by them, giving Leonardo a thurough once over before he smiled and spoke, “Well aren’t you a lovely little thing.”
Leonardo looked up at the one who had just, for all intents and purposes, hit on him. It looked like the unholy love child of Raphael and Traxamus. In other words, it was a big red dino-turtle. And it seemed to be waiting for a reply to its opening salvo. Oh, Retkon would pay for this. Safe world his perky green buttocks.
Tsuzuku…
XD-XP
End Notes:
Alrighty, people may have noticed that I mentioned plot holes in the introduction to this fic. By that I didn’t mean plot holes in the fic, but the little discrepancies left in various TMNT canons that I could take advantage of in order to heap babies on Leo. Like, for example, using FREAKING FIRE RETARDANT FOAM to reverse Tokka and Razar’s mutations in the TMNT: Secret of the Ooze movie. Yeah. Right. Pull the other one, its got bells on.
Morons.
Venus comes from a dimension where her father, Chung I never made contact with Splinter via the astral plane. So he beat the evil demon dragon things earlier (and for reals) and dies earlier than in TMNT: Next Mutation canon.
XD-XP
Names:
Dark Leonardo = Masaccio “Stay out of the cutlery if you know what’s good for you.”
Dark Raphael = Ghiberti “Time for a Time Out.”
Dark Donatello = Uccello “Live electrical feeds are not toys!”
Dark Michelangelo = Botticelli “You are going to stand with your beak in the corner until I say so!”
Tokka = Titian “No biting!”
Mei Pieh Chi = Venus “Young ladies do NOT beat their brothers with statuary!”
Soo... review and gimmie concrit people! You know you waaaaanna. And any spelling errors, punctuation mistakes, sentences that just don't work, things you thought were shiny, etc. Whatever you wanted to point out, please feel free to do so!
Anyway, I should probably warn you that this chapter is a little bit darker than the last one, but it's important to the plot! Really! It's not just because I like to torture Leo!
Oh, just read the silly thing.
Patching the Trousers
Or: This is entirely Kay the Cricketed’s fault, because yes, dammit, Leo needs babies.
Concept: Take other mutant turtles that have shown up in the various TMNT universes. Shrink them. Put them in a box. Put the box in Leo’s room. Insist that the baby!turtles call him “mommy”. Also, Leonardo does a lot of dimension hopping, so let’s see how many plot holes we can chuck him through before he gets airsick.
Timeline: Patchwork, but mostly based on the end of Fast Forward and heavily biased towards the 2003 cartoon and the new 2007 movie. The new characters that show up and some of the events described are taken from both movies and spin-offs.
Pairing: April/Casey, Raphael/Leonardo, Michelangelo/Donatello, some hints of OT4, and I wanna introduce Splinter to Casey’s Mom. I think that I’ll make Mrs. Jones/Splinter my new crack!OTP.
Warnings: Crack leik whoa, slash, turtlecest, mommy!Leo, and author insertions cleverly disguised as various OC’s.
Summary: It was a bit sad that they had to leave Cody behind, but they were finally going home, back to their own time. Things were finally going right. But then well… you know the expression, you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family? Thanks to the Dark Turtle Clones the Ninja Turtle’s trip through time experiences some turbulence. They make it back home in one piece, but realize that something has gone awry. Leonardo’s missing, he’s been lost in Time and there’s a pretty good chance that the Dark Clones followed him. So now Leo’s lost who knows when, and he’s trapped alone with their enemy. This cannot be a good thing. Oh, and Leo needs more tea if he’s going to survive this madness with his sanity intact.
XD-XP
RECAP:
Of course, that is when the earth decided to open up and swallow them both.
It was typical, Leonardo thought as he grabbed a shrieking Venus by the hand and pulled her close as they fell through the rip in space-time that had opened up under the futon, now he would never be able to convince Venus that he was not her mother.
Maybe he could convince his brothers it was a term for father from a little used dialect of Mandarin?
(He was also thankful, in the corner of his mind not devoted to dreading his brothers upcoming teasing or trying to anticipate where he would land next, that he had strapped Chung I’s magic scrolls to his belt and that the boys would be dragged along with him. Really. Taking care of five children was hard enough even without throwing random bouts of inter-dimensional time travel into the mix. Had he offended some Chinese god in a past life or something?)
Tsuzuku…
XD-XP
Sequence the Second: Congratulations on This Joyous Occasion!
XD-XP
Leonardo managed to land on his feet this time, and spared a small moment to feel a just little bit proud of that fact. He was improving. It was only his third time being yanked around through worlds like this and not only was he still conscious, but he had also remained upright! Go him.
Venus squirmed in his arms and he put her down, taking a look around as he did so. It seemed that this time he had landed in the remains of an old rave spot. Only recently abandoned, from the lingering smell of smoke (and other less savoury things), which remained on the air. He and his brothers had spied on a few of the clubs while they were in use, and used the old buildings themselves when the raver’s had moved on. Hotspots like this one had used to be had to be moved frequently in order to avoid being busted by the cops. A valid worry, the partygoers were usually so intoxicated on various poisons that the appearance of traditionally armed five-foot ninja turtles would not shock them. (Like that one time when they were thirteen and Mikey had been involved in that incident with the pineapples and a rather unfortunate Goths nipple ring… and Leonardo had been sure he had purged that memory. Back to the meditation mats for him.)
A snuffle came from one of the darker corners of the warehouse and Leonardo tensed as he peered into the shadows, trying to make out what was making the noise.
There!
Movement along the far wall, too small to be a human, but too large to be vermin… Leonardo looked at Venus, who was still standing next to him, clinging to his weapons belt. He sighed, wondering over the best way to deal with this.
“Venus-chan?” Leonardo winced at the loudness of his voice in the silence, even whispering. He was topside, in a city, with children. Master Splinter had never let them aboveground while they were as young as Venus, and when he did take them scavenging near the upper levels he had enforced a strict ‘no-noise’ policy. He felt like he was breaking some huge unwritten rule of the cosmos. Thou shalt not bringeth mutants of less than ten summers aboveground, especially not during daylight hours, you moron.
“Yes, Mama?” Venus was just as quiet, though her voice seemed just as shattering. Leonardo hid a grimace.
“Can you check and see if your brothers are here?” Leonardo gestured at the wall opposite the movement, “I’m going to check the other side of the room. They might be hiding, so look carefully.”
“Yes Mama!” Venus said, eyes shining with curiosity as her cautiousness receded without the appearance of an immediate threat. She scampered off to the other side of the warehouse, calling the boys names.
Leonardo quickly crossed to where he had noticed the movement and noises coming from, intending to calm his paranoia by proving that it was just a stray cat or something. His search turned up two empty hand-held fire extinguishers, a pile of mostly-clean towels used to wipe down the bar top and a lot of broken furniture. He was about to consider the matter moot - the animal must have been scared off and run - when he heard another whimper. Leonardo bypassed an utterly flattened ten-foot tall subwoofer, and felt his heart seize in his chest.
A baby turtle stared back at him, dark eyes huge and terrified in his grey-green face. But next to him…
Oh by all the merciful kami in the heavens and the dragon kings under the waves, next to the little turtle was a nightmare sight that would haunt the eldest son of the Hamato clan for many nights to come. Another small body lay crumpled on the cement, brown fur stained dark. A puppy, it looked like a wolf although Leonardo could not be certain of it, barely past the first stages of mutation… and it would never get any further.
All he could think was, ‘I’m glad I made Venus go to the other side of the building. I wouldn’t have wanted her to see this.’
For a long moment Leonardo could only stare at the sad little pile of fur. There was nothing he could do; the child had… passed beyond this world. With a heavy sigh he wrapped the small, broken body in one of the old bar towels he had fished out of the wreckage earlier and placed then pathetic bundle against the far wall of the empty dance club, under a pile of debris where the children would not find it. He would come back and bury the poor thing later, for now he turned his attention on the one he could help.
The little snapper squalled, screeching in protest and fear when Leonardo picked him up. The infant turtle was badly bruised. Judging by the remains of the little canine mutant, and the condition of the battered but living baby he held, they had both been trampled. The foot shaped bruises developing on tender green skin lent credit to the theory.
“You had best thank the spirits that you’re a turtle little one.” Leonardo solemnly informed the turtle tot, who sniffled, the very picture of mini turtle misery. “Your shell seems to have saved you from the worst of it. I suppose it’s a good thing you’re still young enough to pull your head into your shell, otherwise you might’ve gotten you head bashed in as well.”
Leonardo kept his voice to a soothing murmur as he checked the toddler over for serious injuries. Fortunately it looked to him as if the child had instinctively pulled into his overlarge shell before anything more than large bruises had been inflicted. It was horrifying, what the little one must have suffered through, all alone with the body of a dead wolf infant. The baby snapper was hardly big enough to crawl, forget about standing upright until his legs had finished mutating. Right now the child was just finishing the mutation that allowed him the ability to walk on two legs.
“Mama!” Venus came scrambling over the debris.
“Venus, stay on the floor!” Leonardo cried as he stood and hurried over to her, not wanting her to be cut on the wreckage, “Please, be careful. There could be broken glass or worse things in there, don’t climb on it.”
“I’m sorry Mama.” Venus looked contrite, “But the boys aren’t here and what is that?”
“I found him over by the stage.” Leonardo sighed as his explanation was ignored in favour of being pulled down until Venus could see the baby clearly.
“Oh! He’s so little! Mama, look at how small his hands are!” Venus cooed as she tickled the baby, whose fussing stopped as he starred at Venus with equal fascination. Venus looked up at Leonardo with shining eyes, “What’s his name, Mama?”
“I don’t know, Venus-chan, why don’t we ask him?” Leonardo looked down at the little turtle in his arms, “I don’t suppose you’re old enough to be talking yet? You’re certainly big enough. Do you have a name?”
“Mama!” The baby squealed, reaching for Leonardo’s face.
“Oh hell no.” Leonardo muttered, determined not to let another child call him mother if he could stop it. (He had since given up on Venus. She wanted a mother, not another father. She would call him what she would call him, and neither gender-convention nor sincere protests would gainsay her.)
“Mama?” Asked the baby, tilting his head to one side.
“Do you have a name?” Leonardo asked again, speaking slowly. The little snapper just tilted his head to the other side and gazed adoringly up at Leonardo. A niggling voice in the back of his head (it sounded vaguely like Donatello) was nattering on about imprinting. The older turtle sighed. “I’ll take that as a no.”
“You should give him a name Mama.” Venus suggested as she tickled one little foot, making the baby kick and giggle. She looked up at Leonardo, “Just like you gave me.”
“I suppose I should.” Leonardo sighed again and looked down at the infant for a long moment, mind whirling with possibilities. “What do you think of the name Titian? Hmm, Titian-kun?”
“Tokka!” The newly named Titian crowed, making Leonardo wince.
“Close enough.” The blue clad turtle shook his head, “Just don’t blame me later if you decide the nickname is stupid, alright Tokka?”
The naming crisis dealt with, Leonardo ensconced Venus and Titian in a small room that had probably been used to store coats, but was now one of the few places in the building not littered with broken debris. He took the time to snap a spare set of cuffs to the baby, just in case. Turning to leave, Leonardo hesitated at the door, glancing back at his daughter and the baby. Time was a finite resource, hopefully the boys would have had the sense to hide themselves, but…
“Venus-chan, I need you to watch Titian-kun for me while I go get your brothers.” Leonardo said as he hovered midway between guarding and searching, “I shouldn’t be gone long, but I don’t know how long it will take to find them. So I need you to promise me you won’t leave this room unless someone comes. If that happens I need you to hide.”
The memory of the baby wolf hovered in front of his eyes before he banished it. What kind on world had they landed in?
“It’s alright Mama!” Venus reassured him, “I’ll take good care of Titian! You’ll see. Go get the others, they’ve probably gotten in trouble by now.”
“You’re right.” Leonardo smiled wanly, “I’ll go as fast as I can.”
“Be careful Mama!” Venus called to him as he left.
“I will.” Leonardo promised before carefully wedging the door shut and leaving the building.
Once outside he hid himself in a convenient patch of shadows and considered things carefully. A tiny voice in the back of his head was screaming about time running out, but he ignored it in favour of deep breaths and a calm centre. If he and Venus had landed in there, and assuming that the distance between he and the children had remained the same, then the boys should be no more than a few hundred meters in… that direction.
Taking to the rooftops, Leonardo felt his heart skip as he gazed upon New York’s familiar skyline. For a moment, he dared to think that he might have found his own world. Some things were wrong though; the Saki skyscraper was missing, as was the Utroms Earth base tower, and he realized that this was yet another alternate world, though one more painfully familiar than the last two.
The alleyways blurred beneath him as he searched, and he wondered how he was supposed to attracted the boys attention without attracting human attention… especially the kind of human attention that trampled little babies underfoot and just left them in abandoned warehouses. He would be glad to leave this world behind, if only to get some distance from the memory.
A commotion a few streets over to his right attracted his attention, and he gratefully let his focus shift from his dark thoughts to an external threat. Peering down carefully he watched as some stereotypical street punks fought a losing battle against a dark haired man in a hockey mask and a… pizza delivery boy? From the golf bag filled with the sticks, clubs and bats of various ball sports, Leonardo could only assume he was watching this worlds version of Casey Jones. Well, at least he was not a woman, but who the hell was the kid?
The last of the street gang joined their fellows in either merciful unconsciousness outright retreat, Casey - and that was defiantly Casey Jones - shouting insults about their punitive parentage after them. Casey was picking up a cricket bat (Casey Jones? Playing cricket?) and inspecting it for damage, but the boy was heading further into the alley.
“Hey, Keno! Where are you going kid?” Casey called when he noticed the boy walking deeper into the shadows, “You know Raph’ll have my hide if you get hurt.”
“I can take care of myself Casey! I fought against the Foot too, remember?” The kid, Keno, shot back without looking, searching the back of the alley, “Besides, I thought I saw something moving back here. Did you notice how the gang had crowded in here? I want to make sure they didn’t dump somebody in the trash, or chase some poor kid down here.”
“Yer right.” Casey said after a minute, pushing up his mask, “It did look like they chased someone in here, didn’t it.”
Leonardo was frozen in place above them, mind whirling with the implications of what he had heard. It seemed like he had found himself in a world with some correlation to his own, much like the first where he had watched other versions of his brothers and himself fight the Shredder. Leonardo did not recognize the boy, Keno, but apparently he was one of Raphael’s strays. No matter what world, it seemed that Raphael retained his soft spot for troubled kids.
A flicker of movement in the corner of his eye and his breath caught. Those were his boys! He watched as Botticelli squirmed again, rustling the trash bags around him. Leonardo shook his head. That boy, it seemed that some things were genetic after all. At least it was a reasonable friendly force the kids were hiding from, and not someone truly dangerous to their safety.
Still, if he wanted to avoid complications, it would probably be best if they were seen as little as possible.
Good thing he was a ninja.
Approximately three smoke pellets, two shoves into a dumpster (with accompanying profanity) and four quick boosts up the fire escape later they were well on their way to completing that goal. Leonardo did not allow them to stop moving until they were several buildings away and hidden behind a large enough set of vents.
“Are you boys okay?” Leonardo asked, visually checking them over despite protests to the contrary, “I’m sorry it took so long to find you. Now, tell me what happened.”
In retrospect, Leonardo really should have known better than to ask.
“We were puttin’ the dishes in the kitchen like you told us to -” Ghiberti started off.
“Then the floor went all yellow and ATE us!” Botticelli cut in.
“Yeah! And we went ‘round and ‘round and ‘round -” Uccello illustrated with his arms.
“And we landed over there somewhere.” Masaccio pointed near the mouth of the alley where Leonardo had found them.
“And there were HUMANS all OVER the place!” Botticelli threw his arms open wide to show how the humans had been all around them.
“So we hid like you told us we should when we see humans -” Masaccio piped up.
“Even though we totally could have taken care of them.” Ghiberti chimed in.
“But those stinky humans chased us into that place where you found us!” Botticelli looked outraged.
“And then those other humans showed up and they started fighting!” Uccello bounced in excitement and left over adrenalin.
“And that’s what happened.” Masaccio concluded.
The entire explanation had taken less than a minute. Leonardo blinked. The boys blinked back at him.
“You were seen?” Leonardo asked, grasping one of the important points, “By humans?”
“Well, kinda.” Masaccio admitted, “But not really.”
“Yeah, we ran and hid really, really fast!” Botticelli reassured Leonardo.
“Besides, they’re all sleeping now.” Uccello noted.
“Wish I coulda helped ‘em sleep.” Ghiberti sulked.
“Ah.” Leonardo muttered, Ghiberti was really too much like Raphael sometimes, “Well, as long as you didn’t get hurt. Let’s get back to your sister before something happens to her too.”
“Okay!” The agreement came in four-part chorus.
A few minutes and one close call with a loose brick later the five turtles slipped back into the abandoned warehouse cum destitute dance club. Motioning for the boys to be quiet, left them hidden in the shadows for a minute as he scouted around to make sure they had not been followed and that no one had entered the place while he had been gone. Satisfied that they were safe for the moment Leonardo led them to the room where he had left Venus and Titian.
“Venus-chan? It’s me.” Leonardo called softly as he slid the door open.
“Mama!” Venus cried out in relief, looking up from where she had been playing with the baby. “You found the boys!”
“Mei-mei!” The boys cheered as they pushed past Leonardo into the room.
Shaking his head, Leonardo entered the room at a more sedate pace and shut the door behind him. The boys had crowed around Venus, staring curiously at Titian. The baby turtle was returning their intent inspection with equal fervour.
“Hey Ma!” Botticelli called out, and Leonardo mentally threw up his hands in surrender. There was no helping it. Apparently he was doomed to be a mother. “Who’s this?”
“His name is Titian.” Leonardo told him, including the rest of the boys in the introduction, “I found him when he arrived here. He’d been abandoned, so I decided that he would come with us.”
“Does this mean he’s our brother too?” Masaccio asked.
“Yes it does.” Leonardo said firmly.
“Yay!” Botticelli cheered, “Someone else gets to be the baby!”
“Yes, Bo.” Leonardo could not help laughing at that, “I suppose it does.”
The rest of the day passed peacefully. Leonardo went out once to fetch food, and soon after dark they all settled down to sleep off the stress of the day. Rousing enough to remind them to stay in the building when the children woke up and wanted to play, Leonardo slept with one ear open for trouble. It was later that night when Leonardo was woken completely from his doze by the sound of voices.
Familiar voices. His brother’s voices.
“Oh shell. Not again.” Leonardo sub-vocalized to himself, getting to his feet. He looked around the room, the kids were missing. Probably playing in the main room, his curse had more feeling this time. “Shell!”
Leonardo slipped through the shadows, tracking his brother’s copies by all of the noise they were making. Honestly, they were so loud it was a wonder if they were making any sort of effort stealth. Leonardo was briefly glad that he had explained to the children about being in the wrong world. They would hide from these strange turtles just as readily as they would hide from humans.
“Duuuuuude.” That was a Mikey whine, “Why are we wasting our time here?”
“For the last time, Mikey.” The other Leonardo sounded a little annoyed, “We’re here because Casey and Keno had some ninja trouble earlier today, and I want to make sure that the Foot aren’t up to their old tricks again.”
“But why here?” Mikey wanted to know.
“Because, knumbskull.” Ah Raph, ever a paragon of tact, “The ninja action happened near here. And Fearless Leader wants to check this place out because it was where we had that last fight with the Shredder.”
“Oh.” Leonardo could see them now, picking their way over the busted equipment near the stage. The Mikey hopped up to sit on the edge, “That makes sense.”
“Uh, guys?” Their Donatello sounded strange, more surprised than the gentle chiding Leonardo had been expecting. “I think you should take a look at this.”
“At what?” His Leo asked.
Wordlessly their Donnie pulled a stricken looking Venus out of hiding. Her eyes were wide and she clutched Titian to the top of her chest.
“What the?” Their Raph sounded shocked, but that would change soon, “Another one of the Foot’s experiments gone wrong?”
And there was the anger. The sai-wielding turtle was stomping over to loom above Venus, growling. The little girl whimpered a little and seemed to shrink into herself, curling protectively around the baby, and Leonardo hissed. Oh, image of his little brother or not that was just not on! Who did this creep think he was, threatening Leonardo’s daughter?
Leonardo stepped out of hiding unnoticed, though not for long. He meant to shout, but instead he made a sound that was part whistle, part trill, and part snarl. Whatever it was, it was loud and attention grabbing. The boys broke cover and darted over to stand behind him, huddled together but glaring at the interlopers.
Venus tried to do the same but was prevented when the other Raph grabbed her arm.
“What the heck is goin’ on here?” The red clad turtle growled.
Leonardo replied with a precisely aimed shuriken. The angry turtle dropped Venus’s arm and dogged the missile. Venus scrambled away.
“Why the heck does this guy look like Leo?” This worlds Mikey felt the need to ask.
“I have no idea.” The other Leo said grimly, “But I intend to find out.”
“It could be a clone.” Came their Donnie’s suggestion, “I mean, look at what he’s wearing.”
Leonardo ignored them, knowing he must look strange to them in his environmental regulator.
“Venus, bring Titian over here.” He commanded, speaking for the first time.
“Yes, Mama.” She answered, hurrying over, skirting the other adult turtles warily. She made it to her brothers without incident.
There was a moment of perfect silence. The shouts and threats and recriminations stopped, but Leonardo knew better than to expect reprieve. The worst was yet to come.
Slowly this worlds Raphael turned to Leonardo’s counterpart, “Something you maybe want to tell us Leo?”
The other Leonardo made a strange, strangled sound of denial.
“Dude!” The Michelangelo screeched, “Are you saying that this freaky Leo clone is a chick?”
“With six children, none the less.” The Donatello mused, looking contemplative.
Leonardo knew that it would only get worse, and he gave his mortified counterpart a look of perfect sympathy and understanding.
It should be noted that in the history of the universe there have been many people in highly embarrassing situations that have wished for the earth to open up and swallow them in order to end their torment. However, physics being what they are it rarely ever happens that this specific desire is fulfilled, and they are left to suffer without reprieve. As it stands, Hamato Leonardo of Earth-3 is one of the few beings to have that specific wish granted.
Okay, given it was actually a multidimensional portal through space-time, and it was leaning up at a forty-three degree angle, but let us not argue semantics right now.
XD-XP
Leonardo landed and his feet and looked around as the children righted themselves. High, vaulted, gothic architecture with suspiciously imposing displays of archaic weaponry and antiques.
“Um, Mama?” Uccello sounded worried, “What is that?”
Leonardo turned around. A huge circle-alter made of stone, carved with nasty looking runes and surrounded by distressingly solid looking containment tubes. Ferocious roars and bangs were coming from inside the tubes. On a hunch, Leonardo walked up to the closest one and looked inside.
Leonardo was slumped on the bottom of the tube.
“Right.” Leonardo said after a moment, jumping the short distance back to the floor, “We are not staying here.”
Obligingly, a portal opened up about three feet from the ground.
“That will work.” Leonardo said after a minute and led the kids through.
XD-XP
The next world they landed in seemed normal enough. Leonardo managed to find them a safe place to live in order to wait out their stay. Things stayed peaceful for a few days until he received a surprise visitor one night after the children had been put to bed.
“Hullo. You’d be Hamato Leonardo-san of Earth-3 then, eh?”
Leonardo whirled around, ninjaken whistling out of their sheaths with speed previously only seen in the nightmares of various Foot Ninja. There was an unfamiliar woman in his kitchen, standing a carefully measured distance away. Close enough for polite conversation, but not near enough to be intruding on his personal space, and inside his striking range while being outside of hers.
“Who are you?” Leonardo growled, barely checking the urge to cut first and ask questions later. Now was not the time to be channelling Raphael, not with the hatchlings in the next room.
“Easy there, luv. I come in peace.” While she was talking Leonardo was sizing her up, and she knew it too, from the vaguely amused expression she wore. Humanoid, rather emphatically female, glittery white skin, glowing psychedelic eyes, prismatic gold hair and similarly coloured ear tufts. Metallic wings that looked like a cross of avian and insect, she could probably hover as well as fly. Wearing a robe vestment that seemed to be entirely made up of slightly translucent veils of varying sizes and hues held together with an impossible to determine number of safety pins. She did not look like a threat. She looked like a stoned Trekkies wet dream. “Would you like me to put my hands on the wall and assume the position then?”
“What?” Leonardo sputtered as the intruder tossed him a saucy wink and giggling flirtatiously. “No! I want you to tell me what you’re doing here and what you want!”
“D’accord.” She said folding her hands into her sleeves, and Leonardo noticed that inch-long gold talons tipped her fingers. “Shall we sit down? I think your tea is done. Really, is this any way to thank the one who stopped your impromptu whirlwind tour of the Multiverse?”
“That was you?” Blinking Leonardo shook his head, sheathing his swords but remaining wary. The hatchlings room had no windows or ‘convenient’ air ducts. Not very good for circulation, but it calmed his nerves that no one could get in or out of the bedroom with him seeing. It was safe enough to indulge his unexpected guest, and besides, the tea really was ready.
Not a minute later they were both seated at Leonardo’s functional little table, holding mugs of jasmine tea.
“Now then.” Leonardo said grimly once the bare social necessities were over with, “Who are you and why are you here?”
“Mm. Right. My name is Retkon, and I’m a professional Time Seamstress.” She smiled briefly, “And I’m here because of you.”
“A Timestress?” Leonardo frowned, not liking where the conversation seemed to be going, “Like Renet?”
“Gods no!” Retkon snorted into her teacup, “Not anything like that bubble head, no offence to his Lordship Sims, but I’m an entirely difference creature all together.”
“What do you mean?” Leonardo was slowly beginning to relax, it almost seemed that for once in his life the stranger-who-dropped-in-unannounced-and-knew-his-name was not out to get him.
“Well, y’see, it’s mostly a matter of semantics. But it’s all in the name really.” Retkon shrugged eloquently. She really had the most expressive body language Leonardo had ever seen. You would need more than a gag to shut this woman up, in fact, Leonardo figured it would require a full body cast to keep her from expressing an opinion. He had never seen anyone get so much work out of an eyebrow before. And she was still talking. How nice, today seemed to be a day of miracles, he was actually getting a complete explanation for once. “You see… the fact is you mistook me. I’m not a Timestress. Rather superfluous job that. Mostly involves doing Lord Sims dusting and wearing very silly hats.”
“Lord Sims?” Leonardo echoed, faintly amused.
“What?” She paused to think, “Oh yes. Just a little pun, rather clever, eh what?”
“Hm.” Leo was noncommittal, but he might just not have gotten the joke.
“Right then, moving on.” Retkon flapped her hand dismissively, “Difference is I’m a Time Seamstress. I patch up holes the Trousers, tighten the seams, make certain that nothing’s gone falling through gaps in the pockets and so on. That sort of thing. It’s all quantum, really.”
“Excuse me, but, trousers?” Leonardo looked equal parts intrigued and appalled behind his solemn-ninja expression. It was all in the corners of his eyes and mouth.
“Right then, time for a lesson in the basics of the theory of temporal mechanics it seems.” She grinned and settled into a lecture, gesturing with her hands to illustrate. “I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase ‘the fabric of reality’ before, eh?”
“I have.” Leonardo replied to her expectant look, “Please continue.”
“Well the ‘fabric’ of Time is best described as a pair of Trousers.” Retkon snickered at Leonardo’s blank look, “Yes, like a pair of pants. It goes like this y’see, any given moment, say this one for example, could be considered the waistband, keeping together until you get to a pivotal moment where a choice has to be made. Now when you make that choice say, between kicking me out or sitting down to have tea, the Trousers split into Legs, one Leg is this one and in the other Leg you threw me out the window. The more unlikely a choice is, the weaker the seams are for that particular Leg.”
“I see.” Leonardo mused, watching the glittery visitor over his teacup.
“Of course, you can’t limit the analogy to human literalism.” Retkon said airily, “The Trousers have an infinite number of Legs, which continue to split into infinitely more Trouser Legs. If you tried to make a representation on the physical plane you’d end up with pants that only Nyartholep could wear.”
“No, I understand what you’re saying.” Leonardo reassured her, “It’s not just a matter of left or right, but also up, down, back, and forwards.”
“Not to mention fifty-two degrees South-South-East at a twenty-three degree angle incline.” Retkon grinned agreeably, inviting Leonardo to share the joke, “But yes, that’s the idea at it’s most basic.”
“And you job is what?” Leonardo asked instead, “To darn the tears?”
“That’s about right.” Retkon nodded, “While Lord Sims and his girl take care not to let all of space-time go messily exploding all over creation, I take care of the smaller stuff. Like say, locating temporally misplaced overprotective ninja turtles with mother hen tendencies and getting them back to the timeline where they belong?”
“But.” Leonardo narrowed his eyes at Retkon, whose mobile face was a panorama of innocent good intentions, “If that were the case, wouldn’t you have shown up earlier to fix my families little time travel problem, instead of waiting for us to deal with it ourselves?”
“Eheh. Who’s a clever peanut, then?” Retkon’s face went carefully blank before she grinned ruefully at Leonardo, the expression more real than the others she had worn over the course of the conversation, “Truth of the matter is, most times I don’t really have to put a direct hand in. Time travel mishaps tend to sort themselves out one way or another. And unless we’ve caused it, the people in my line of work tend to ignore things like independent Time travel unless it threatens to damage reality.”
“So what you’re saying,” Leonardo said slowly, “Is that my family being randomly shot one hundred years into the future was not a threat to you but my being here - wherever here is - is a bad thing?”
“Er, yeah. About that.” Retkon had the grace to look a bit sheepish, “Even you being here wouldn’t be a big deal if you hadn’t managed to land yourself in this particular Leg of Time.”
“Alright, I’ll bite.” Leonardo said grimly after a moment of silence, “What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s unravelling.” Leonardo stared at her, unblinking, and Retkon gave him a small apologetic smile, “Look, I apologise for dumping this on you but you managed to land yourself in one of the worst Legs possible.”
“How so?” Leonardo finally managed to ask.
“Tang Shen never died, Yoshi never left Japan, and TCRI never set up an office here.” Retkon listed succinctly.
“Which means that in this world, my brothers and I never existed.” Leonardo interpreted, speaking softly as he considered the thought. He and his brothers had mentioned the possibility before; about what the world would have been like if Splinter’s beloved Master Yoshi had lived. But the thought that he and his brothers, his dear brothers, not existing… being nothing more that pet turtles in a bowl, that it was real, and not just a hypothetical situation… well. It gave Leonardo chills.
“Yes. Well actually no.” Retkon said simply in reply.
“Why is this er, leg unravelling?” Leonardo asked quietly.
“Look,” Retkon sighed, “I don’t want you to feel guilty or anything, because it’s not your fault at all. Nor is it your brothers. Things are fixed so that people from the same temporal line run at the same speed, and as intelligent as your younger brother is, you haven’t got the, pardon the pun, time left to wait for him to locate you.”
Leonardo was silent, waiting patiently for her to get to the point. Retkon sighed again.
“It’s because you’re here at all.” She said softly, eyes projecting sympathy, “I’m sure you can guess where your physical counterpart here in this world is, but in Japan there is also a Hamato Li, eldest of the four Hamato grandsons, who brings great honour to his grandfathers line.”
“What?” Leonardo froze, “What do you mean?”
“Listen,” Retkon’s voice was gentle, her words chosen carefully, “You and your brothers are your father’s sons, even though you were not born to him, and your father feels much the same about his master. That’s because for all intents and purposes, you are. The people who carry the Hamato name in this Leg are much the same souls as those who carry it in your own. And it is because of this fact that this Leg is becoming unstable. The Entropy Cascade effect is tearing the fabric, and your acting a bit like a sharp rock constantly rubbing against the fabric. Eventually the knee is going to get a hole worn in it, because souls are unique, and having two of you here means that the balance is thrown off. This reality was weak to begin with, because ninety-nine point nine percent of the time Hamato Yoshi ends up in New York somehow. Right now you’ve got your analogous mortal shell in one place, your spirit in another and then you’re sitting here body-and-soul in another place. The Trousers are getting a bit twisted and threadbare because of that.”
“Thus unravelling the fabric.” Leonardo frowned, considering it, “I suppose it makes sense.”
“Mm.” She said into her cup.
“And it’s nice to know that my brothers and I still exist in a way.” A brief smile flickered on his face, “Even if it is as humans.”
“Heh. I hear ya. Yer all pretty damn cute as humans too, thought a bit short for my tastes.” Retkon snickered, a bit before composing herself again, “Right then, look, most of the time the failsafe protocols my department set up prevents things like this from happening. You can travel within your own Leg of time and it’s braches with something close to impunity.”
“Why is that?” Leonardo asked, remembering the time storm and facing the Shredder while trying to protect Cody.
“Because you belong in that Temporal Leg, and just existing, not matter how far up or down in it you are, won’t and can’t do any damage.” Retkon chewed her lip for a moment, “See, the problem is that this world is similar to your own but not the same. If you had landed in a world completely removed from your own, like your friend Usagi’s, where you don’t exist in any aspect at all, you’d be fine. It would be the same if you’d landed in any of the worlds where you and your brothers are giant, mutated turtles. But this place is both too close but not far enough removed from your reality of origin.”
“And that’s bad?” Leonardo interjected.
“Yeah.” Retkon nodded, “That’s bad. Like trying to push an oval peg into a circular hole. If you push it long enough you can wear down the peg until it fits, but it just doesn’t quite work and something inevitably ends up breaking.”
“Well, this has been enlightening.” Leonardo said, finishing his now lukewarm tea, “So now that my existence has threatened the end of this world as we know it, what happens next?”
“Well, that’s what I’m here for really.” Retkon said, sitting back in her chair, “My job is to both fix that damage and find the cause, that being you in this case.”
“And how are you planning on fixing it?” Leonardo asked warily, if this woman intended to wipe them from existence then they were going to have words.
“I haven’t got a whole lot of what you might call ultimate cosmic power - though I do have a very nice house on the seventh level of Null Time, great view - anyway, I have enough skill to make up for it. What I’m gonna do with you is patch you over to a world where you won’t be a victim of casualty.” Retkon’s hands traced parabola and loops in the air, “And as an added bonus I’ll toss in changing les petites temporal frequencies to run on the same wavelength as yours so you won’t have to worry about any random changes in age, as well as putting up a signal to get your rather frantically searching little brothers moving in the right direction.”
“Why can’t you just send me home?” Leonardo had to know.
“Too much interference.” Retkon told him with a shrug, “Stable places like Earth-3 and the Battle Nexus are resistant to my powers, since I’m stronger when reality is a bit more fluid. And before you ask, no, I can’t just ask Lord Sims to send you home either, because by the time I filled out all the paperwork, arranged an appointment, got in to see him and explained the situation your shell will have turned grey. It’s faster and easier just to do it my way.”
“The place you send me isn’t going to be falling apart too, is it?” Leonardo knew it paid to be cautious.
“Nah, don’t worry.” Retkon flapped a hand at him, “I’ll be sending you to a stable reality. It’ll just have to be one where my powers are applicable.”
“May I make a request?” Leonardo asked slowly, turning a tough over in his head.
“Sure thing.” She nodded for him to continue.
“Try to find a place where I won’t have to worry about being eaten or dissected, please.” Leonardo was tired of landing in the middle of crisis after crisis.
“You don’t ask for much, do you?” Retkon grinned, “I’ll do my best. Though I can guarantee that I won’t drop you anyplace dangerous.”
“Define dangerous.” Leonardo narrowed his eyes.
“No wars, apocalypse, or megalomaniac villains.” Retkon listed, ticking each item off on her fingers.
“I suppose that will have to do.” He sighed.
“Perfect! We have an accord!” Retkon clapped her hands. “Off you go then!”
“Wait! You mean right now!” Leonardo protested.
But it was too late, reality was already twisting and fading around him. Leonardo had to close his eyes to keep from getting sick at the contortions the world was making.
When he opened his eyes again, Leonardo found himself standing in the middle of what seemed to be a park of some kind. Tucked in an out of the way corner of the park, Leonardo and the turtle tots, awakened by the dimensional shift, could see that the people walking along the paths were not human. Instead, they looked an awful lot like turtles.
One of the larger specimens stopped as he walked by them, giving Leonardo a thurough once over before he smiled and spoke, “Well aren’t you a lovely little thing.”
Leonardo looked up at the one who had just, for all intents and purposes, hit on him. It looked like the unholy love child of Raphael and Traxamus. In other words, it was a big red dino-turtle. And it seemed to be waiting for a reply to its opening salvo. Oh, Retkon would pay for this. Safe world his perky green buttocks.
Tsuzuku…
XD-XP
End Notes:
Alrighty, people may have noticed that I mentioned plot holes in the introduction to this fic. By that I didn’t mean plot holes in the fic, but the little discrepancies left in various TMNT canons that I could take advantage of in order to heap babies on Leo. Like, for example, using FREAKING FIRE RETARDANT FOAM to reverse Tokka and Razar’s mutations in the TMNT: Secret of the Ooze movie. Yeah. Right. Pull the other one, its got bells on.
Morons.
Venus comes from a dimension where her father, Chung I never made contact with Splinter via the astral plane. So he beat the evil demon dragon things earlier (and for reals) and dies earlier than in TMNT: Next Mutation canon.
XD-XP
Names:
Dark Leonardo = Masaccio “Stay out of the cutlery if you know what’s good for you.”
Dark Raphael = Ghiberti “Time for a Time Out.”
Dark Donatello = Uccello “Live electrical feeds are not toys!”
Dark Michelangelo = Botticelli “You are going to stand with your beak in the corner until I say so!”
Tokka = Titian “No biting!”
Mei Pieh Chi = Venus “Young ladies do NOT beat their brothers with statuary!”
Soo... review and gimmie concrit people! You know you waaaaanna. And any spelling errors, punctuation mistakes, sentences that just don't work, things you thought were shiny, etc. Whatever you wanted to point out, please feel free to do so!