Chapter Text
Leo was dead.
The world was saved, but he was gone. His last words still echoing in her head.
Casey please
She didn’t even have time to say goodbye. All words clamped up in her throat as Leo decided to stupidly trap himself in an entire other dimension with a murderous alien. Her mind had run with millions of thoughts, most wondering why in the world would Leo think that was a solid plan.
The explosion of the closing portal brought her back and it was then she realized she hadn’t even said anything…but even if she did April would never say it to him. She didn’t want to say goodbye.
Memories attacked her despite the warmth they once provided. When they first met, birthdays, the many times they played in the snow, snuggling together to watch movies both good and bad. Leo pushing everyone’s nerves during the lair games. Why was she thinking of that stuff?
All emotions of grief caved under an intense build up of rage when April’s ears caught the vile creature behind her continuing in sick delighted laughter.
April lifted herself up and away from her fathers fallen and crying form. She dragged her feet to the bat she had dropped earlier and gripped the wood so hard it began to shake.
Her movement was slow as she approached the monster, its eye watching her carefully but that sadistic smirk was still there.
“Good riddance”
April’s face tightened and contorted as the rage filled her lungs like a squeezing fire. Her breaths fell with no real pattern and she raised the bat, eyes pooling with tears. Despite her muscles pouring with adrenaline April’s body shook, her emotions so heavy that even her body could barely hold her.
The monster's devilish smirk shrank to a growl and it tried to attack her with one of its disgusting tentacles. But April blocked it with her bat, its wooden body bursting into green shining flames and the mystic power rebounded the tentacle right into the monster's face.
A small twitch of glee pushed its way through April’s grieving heart and she slammed the bat against the monster's one eye, but unfortunately it managed to get its eye closed before she hit.
Still, It screeched and tried to blindly attack her, its free appendages waving wildly. Her bat easily deflected away the limbs and she lifted her foot and stomped on its head, putting her entire weight on it and twisting her shoe over its skin- or whatever you could call its revolting pink outside.
It probably wasn’t even painful, but it felt good to her.
April swung her bat to hit its eye again, she knew it could feel pain there. But a strong cold hand stopped her.
She jerked her head to the side and saw Splinter staring at her with horribly strained red veined eyes and a deep crumpled face. He looked so tired.
He pulled her away from the monster before it could take the paused moment between the two as an advantage to attack.
“We must find the boys” His voice was soft and quiet. A voice that low should never have been able to be heard in New York City.
April lowered her hand with the bat and shakily wiped the tears that refused to stop flowing. “It deserves to suffer” Even her voice shook under the fury.
Splinter’s ears pressed down and he shook his head. “This won’t bring him back” He gently pulled against her arm. “We must not waste time here anymore”
“Feeble cowards!” The monster spat at them but Splinter whispered to ignore it.
She began to follow him back to Casey when a loud and authoritative voice spoke behind them, causing both to jump into a defensive stance. “Don’t worry about the creatures, we will be taking it from here”
April could see a very tall man with short slick combed black hair walking over to the sister Kraang, an army of what looked like soldiers, some in yellow hazmat suits, following behind him. He wore a black suit and sunglasses which gave April serious secret agent vibes.
She stood defensively in front of Splinter who had tried doing the same for her. But she refused to let him, she would not be risking anymore family.
The man turned to them. With his blank face and sunglasses she couldn’t tell much about what he could be thinking.
“We ask that you come with us as well” He said casually, as if that wasn’t a ridiculous thing to say.
“No way, we got places to be” April said as she stared sternly back at the man. There was no way she was going to leave Raph, Donnie, and Mikey out on their own when they were grieving. She needed to get them somewhere safe.
They had to be safe.
The man was about to say something again when one of the soldiers called for his attention. They were trying to taser the sister Kraang but it appeared to do nothing and she managed to swipe her tentacle out and take out the group surrounding her, a horrid screech dryly falling from her mouth.
The man turned back to them with a frown pulling at his face before turned away and began giving out orders to help detain the sister Kraang.
April felt Splinter pull on her arm and she followed. It would be best to stay away from those people when it seemed they were a target. But what could the military want with them? Maybe to ask questions? Either way, April knew they didn’t have time for that.
They had to find the boys.
...
They found a devastated Casey clutching Leo's swords while sobbing his heart out. Splinter said nothing as he gently grabbed the boys hand and pulled him over to April. No reassurances were made that everything would be alright. Nothing was even said between the three of them. They just kept going, using Raph’s activated panic button to find the remaining brothers.
....
When they arrived at Staten island the boys were passed out with one another, all snuggled up against Raph, various different injuries covering each brother. They tried waking them up but only Raph was really responding, and not very well.
Despite this, April had never been more relieved in her life. She checked each of their pulses immediately and with every small thump her heart raised in ecstasy.
Leo was alive. They were all alive.
She had already cried so many tears and yet knew ones spilled out anyway. But they weren’t deeply painful like before, instead they flowed with ease. She couldn’t have been more happy to feel their beautiful heartbeats or see their plaston’s moving up and down. Casey appeared to feel the same based on the big smile and tears.
Splinter tried to call Draxum for help, but he wouldn’t respond.
“We must get them back home” Splinter said as he caressed Raph’s broken shell, dried blood flaking off. April felt sick just looking at it, she couldn’t imagine how much a puncture through the shell could have hurt. And his eye? The blood around it made his red mask darker.
It’s my fault.
Leo had a heavily bruised body, and his jaw had definitely seen better days. What was most concerning though was his plastron, it looked like it had caved in around his stomach, several cracks stretched out and blood poured heavily from the wound and she swore she could see his insides. It was like someone took a hammer and hit him with all their strength. It made her stomach twist and she had to look away before she lost her lunch.
I couldn’t do anything.
Donnie didn’t have too many injuries aside from the blood produced from faint crack marks traveling up his arm that matched Raph and Mikey. And a forming bruise on his plastron.
I’m useless.
For some reason, Mikey had the most blood and cracks covering both arms, though after a peak under his black wrappings April could see that up to his forearms there was nothing but blood, it was as if a layer of scales had been peeled off. His shell was bruised as well, but it was very minor.
And here she was, only some scraped skin and bruises, and standing just fine.
A part of her wished that wasn’t the case. She hated being okay when they were so injured, April wanted to be bleeding and hurting, and sharing their pain.
If I wasn’t so pathetic, none of this would have happened.
....
Casey and Splinter left to get supplies to help take the boys home while April stayed to tend to her brother's injuries. She used the small rolls of bandages from Leo’s side pouch to wrap up the biggest injuries, the rest would just have to wait until they got more medical equipment. April hoped they would be able to hold on for the time.
Just looking at their crumpled bodies covered up in so many white bandages had painful burning tears attempting to escape again. It didn’t help that only a few minutes passed before red began to stain the cloth.
Thoughts ran inside her head, multiple scenarios flashing through her mind, showing all her mistakes.
If she had just been faster the Kraang would have never gotten the key back. If she could have fought back against Raph, heck even blocked his attack! She should have been stronger, she was their big sister and she failed them!
How could she ever think she could keep up? The only thing she had to help was a glowing bat. Leo almost died and there had been nothing she could do about it.
Maybe if she was stronger she could have defeated the sister Kraang faster and gone to help fight- or be a distraction for the Kraang, something, anything that could have prevented all of this!
“I’m sorry” She whispered as she knelt down, her face scrunched painfully as tears trying to build up in her dried eyes were unable to form.
“I’m so sorry”