Chapter Text
~
It was quiet. Far too quiet. Leo had always hated this type of silence.
But now this time there was no one else to listen to.
No Raph scolding him for slacking off, No twin to go bother with his unnecessarily exaggerated stories.. No little brother yelled at him for destroying the kitchen when he tried to make toast at 3am to distract himself from his unwanted thoughts.
It’s just him here.
Him in this lifeless pit.
How long has he been drifting in here?
Surely Kraang will find him again to bring down his wrath upon his captor who too was enslaved in this cage.
Maybe it was meant to be this way. Maybe it's all Leo's bad luck catching up to him. Afterall, he was the one who lost the key. All because of his stupid arrogance.
But if anyone, Leo is glad it was him. Cause he doesn't know what he would do if it was someone else he cared about in his place.
His moment of silence didn't last long though, and even though he hated it, he would rather the silence than what was coming his way.
Instinctively, his body tensed. well, as well as it could with the amount of injuries he sustained.
‘How am I even still alive?’
“There you are, you little pest. You can only hide for so long”
Leo saw the mechanical red eye move to his broken body before the krangg took another step.
“You have enslaved yourself here. It is your fault for playing martyr, who do you think you are? Some type of hero? The creatures of that earth are already destroying it with or without my help. You’ve only bought them time.”
Leo didn't speak, he only shut his eyes and braced himself for the impact that never came.
“The creatures of your world hates your kind, yet, you trapped yourself with death itself for them. Foolish thing to do really.”
Kraang’s voice spoke gravely as he stood hovering above the battered body.
“And I will show you just how foolish it was.”
And there it was, the moment Leo was waiting for. The Kraang lifted its mechanical arms ready to crack open his shell for the second time. He braced for impact yet his body wasn't ready for the loud searing burn that made home on his neck, he felt the bug dig into his flesh. Ripping away his scales as he convulsed with pain, the sound was so animalistic that would have had his family screaming to make it stop. But there was no one here. Just Leo and the devil. And gods he so badly just wanted to be home right now.
Kraang had a sickening malicious smile as he watched Leo writhe in pain.
Leo only had a second to breathe before his body was thrown back into random piece of floating concrete,
“Was it worth it?” the kraang whispered.
Leo stayed silent, hands around his neck, as if trying to expel the thing that had made its home in there.
The krang did not like this, and with a mechanical claw he crushed the slider in its grip
“I SAID, WAS. IT. WORTH. IT!?”
Leo could only gasp, all the air taken out of him as he felt his shell crack even more as the Kraang Flung him through the air again.
Leo thought he might have been dead cause he swore at that moment he saw an orange light that warmed up his body he hadn't even noticed he was cold until he felt his little brother’s ninpo.
Tears escaped his eyes as he saw his brothers looking back at him through the orange portal.
“T..took you guys long enough” he croaked, cracking a smile, throat still raw from earlier. He couldn't tell if they were real or not but he could have sworn he heard them call out his name through choked sobs.
Then their eyes went wide with fear and Leo made the mistake of looking down.
His eyes never left the red dot. Afraid it would come to rip him away from this delirious dream.
The rest became a blur to Leo. His mind was stuck in a frozen panic that he couldn't feel his brother's ninpo safely pull him out and far far away from the empty pit.
‘He can't get my brothers. No no no I can't let him’
He was so out of it that he could barely recognize the words being said around him, he vaguely remembers muttering something before passing out and being carried somewhere by a gentle giant.
‘Is this what death feels like?’