Talk Too Much

C h a p t e r O n e

Fear.

A feeling that wasn't as alien to Yuichi Usagi as it should have been. He stood, his feet planted firmly in the dirt beneath him, a manic and desperate Yokai clawing at his sword. His precious katana, Edgewing, a weapon once gleaming and well-kept, was now chipped and dull.

Usagi grunted, pushing the yokai onto their back and pointing Edgewing to their throat. Like that it was over, he never killed in these battles, only once...

No. He wouldn't think of that now, he couldn't, not while in the ring, not ever. He was over it, was he not? Usagi handed Edgewing to an old yokai dressed in slacks and a maroon apron, one of her bellhops. He could barely part with his sword, but he had no choice, not when he still owed so much to her.

He found himself being guided to his 'room'. A drab cell of concrete with a metal door of some sort. No decoration, a twin-sized bed with a single pillow, and no blanket. He sat down on his bed, the mattress was much too firm, like sitting on a rock.

Usagi sighed, flinging himself back, onto the pillow. He stared up at the concrete ceiling, imagining that he was back at his Auntie's farm. He slowly drifted off to sleep, thinking of his Auntie, and his friends, imagining that maybe, even in the far future, he would see them again.

_________________________________________

"Took you guys long enough." Leonardo Hamato smiled as he saw his brothers appear before him, through a glowing orange portal held open by his youngest brother, Michaelangelo. The oldest, Raphael grinned triumphantly and swung his arm back, a larger version of his hand appearing around his own, glowing red. He thrust this hand forward, grabbing hold of Leo's.

Another turtle's eyes grew wide, Donatello had spotted Prime, the ruthless leader of the Kraang approaching behind his twin at a hasty pace.

"Where-?" Donnie's face fell, his staff, where was it? Leo saw him panicking, and looked behind him, just as he reached the other side of the portal, Prime grabbed him.

Leo gasped, flinging his body upright quickly as he clutched his plastron, it was a dream... Not all of it, he closed his eyes and shuddered, feeling the cold air of the subway tunnels stinging the sensitive cracks in his shell. Not all of it was a dream.

He checked his phone, 3:35 am. Leo sighed, wrinkling his nose and wrapping his blanket around his back. He stood up and went to the kitchen, deciding to have some noodles or a cookie before trying to return to bed.

Leo had this dream every night since the Kraang invasion, it always was the same. Everything happened as it had in reality, except in the end, when he was being brought back from the prison dimension, something went wrong.
Raph couldn't use his ninpo, Mikey couldn't hold open the portal, or Donnie lost his staff. Every night, he would wake up after Prime finally caught him. He had yet to succeed in falling back asleep.

He grabbed a cookie Mikey had made the day before, resting it in his mouth before deciding to grab another, what was the harm in two cookies? He then made his way back to his room, stopping once to adjust the bandages wrapped around his shell.

Before the Kraang attack, Leo had never considered himself a necessary part of the team. He always found himself messing plans up, or better yet causing problems. So he decided to learn first aid. He thought, if he couldn't be a good part of the team in the field, he should be able to fix things when he seriously fucked up.

His medic training was really paying off, but not how he thought it would. He never expected to need to fix himself up, but there he was, his shell and plastron cracked.

Leo stepped into his room, a subway car, nearly hollowed out save for a bench on top of which sat an old mattress he had found in an alleyway not too long ago. He sat down on that mattress and took a bite of a cookie, opening up a Jupiter Jim comic, and slowly drifting into the night.