Transient | A ROTTMNT Future Story

faulty parts

Leo's mechanical arm was a piece of crap. There wasn't anything hidden or metaphorical about that. The purple prosthetic just didn't do what it should have, and that was to function as a replacement arm. It drove Leo up the wall. When he trained in his family's shared bunker, small springs would erupt from nooks and crannies he didn't even know held the damn things. I thought Donnie was all about magnetic screws. Leo thought to himself sarcastically after one particularly taxing day. That brief thought would soon come with a vengeance. Within the next hour, towards the end of a battle, Leo's arm popped clean off. He panicked, obviously, fearing for his life. But once the alien enemies were kept at bay for the day, Leo angrily grabbed the prosthetic arm and stormed into Donnie's former lab to fix himself up, all the while spouting a string of curses that greatly offended Mikey on behalf of little Casey.

Donnie's lab turned into an honorary shrine of sorts. It housed all of the items that made Donnie Donnie, and Leo wasn't planning on throwing the stuff out anytime soon. How could he? There was the, what Leo called his "fix-it workshop", which was just the metal table where he fixed his arm prosthetic nearly daily now. There was also the insanely cool array of prototype weapons that always distracted Leo's focus. He sometimes wondered if he could bring them out of Donnie's beta once he was knowledgeable enough. He couldn't get rid of any of these treasures, not ever in a million years. Leo did, however, add something to the collection:

A rather large rock. Not big enough to be considered a boulder, but definitely larger than the palm of his hand. This rock was a deep cool gray color, one from Leo's old pond rock collection, and was textured in such a way that would make Donnie leap for joy. It was eroded to the point that it was silky smooth to the touch. Upon further examination, evidence of white split cracks from bumping against other pond rocks were visible all over the bottom, just barely creeping up the sides.

Formerly drawn on the rock were two crooked orange circular eyes created by a sharpie that Leo had found in Donnie's old pencil cup, though the orange didn't quite shine through. Instead, the rock made it look like it was a deep red, and wet in a very specific pattern. On top of the previous marker lines was a pair of glued googly eyes that Leo scavenged the ends of the Earth to find two identically sized ones of. With the silly shakeable black and white eyes, the image came together. It was Donnie.

Donnie, Leo's confidant and voice of reason. Donnie, Leo's physical manifestation of his conscience, reincarnated in Leo's likeness as a rock. Donnie, whose wittiness and peculiar form of speech was now terminated indefinitely. But at least he was here, Leo would reassure himself falsely.

Nobody had known about Pond Rock Donnie for four days. Leo would sneak into the closed off lab for arm repairs (which he wasn't lying about doing) and just talk to the rock. Half of the talks were usually heavy, since Leo couldn't stop stressing from the war. There were other times when Leo absolutely refused to think, instead opting for a more comedic conversation. That was until Mikey caught Leo right in the middle of his private Leo to Donnie discussion.

"What are you doing?" Mikey asked, R.A.P.H. behind his brother. The thin fibers of Mikey's hair poked out splayed from under his orange mask.

Leo felt his hand and face become clammy from shame. He discreetly hid Donnie from view with a simple tilt of his artificial limb. He swore to stall for an excuse. "Uh...arts and crafts?"

"Leo?" R.A.P.H. gave Leo as best of a sympathetic look as his scary robotic face could. His face couldn't change expressions, but if it could, R.A.P.H. would have been frowning in that moment.

The three stood in an awkward standstill for a little over a minute, the tension thickening to an uncomfortable foggy humidity. Finally, Mikey became fed up. "Move." He said, and with the upward flick of his wrist, an orange starburst of mystic energy levitated Leo's purple arm off of the table.