[TEXT] Leo to Team, COME IN TEAM

[anything_it_takes]

[The cart ride into Keeliai is long, exhausting and stressful. Leo presses himself into the furthest corner to hide (which still leaves him painfully visible) even as his sharp blue eyes peer through the slats, taking in as much of the alien city as possible.

On one hand, this is the most amazing thing Leo's ever experienced, an exhilarating adventure straight out of Space Heroes. On the other, he's never felt so alone, out of control and exposed in his life. Sure, he always wanted adventure, but not without the guys - and not hauled down a city road in broad daylight, surrounded by people turning their heads in curiosity.

At least the few kedan on the street who take a close enough look into the open-backed cart to spy him out don't scream or run. But there are some stares, and he can feel the undercurrent of hostility like a flame inches from his skin. There's a tension in the air in some parts of the city they go through, a hard look to some of the kedan when they see someone not like them...

Leo slips into his appointed building like - well, like a ninja, or as close as possible while lacking the cover of darkness. When he gets to his temporary quarters he leans his shell against the door and sighs wearily; alien robots and plant monsters are one thing, but this? This is an entirely new level of crazy.

Water had seemed a natural choice when the kedan gave him options. He's glad of his choice now as he splashes some from the room's small fountain over his head, then winces as he does the same to the burn mark forming on his shoulder. It's not serious, but Leo's entire arm aches and tingles from channeling Justin's electrical shock through his katana. He's certainly pulled smarter moves.

Hopefully whatever jerked him "sideways" during that explosion also took his brothers through in slightly different places, and he can link up with them again once they all get their bearings. He knows the team can handle this situation, but first? They have to be together.

He'll start canvassing the city come dusk, one Sector at a time if he has to. But until nightfall, Leonardo has time to kill, and he isn’t about to sit around doing nothing.

Settling in at the console, Leo sets it up for a text message - and pauses, considering his options. This is a public network; he has to get a message out that his brothers will understand if they're listening, but that won't arouse too much civilian curiosity or alert any enemies.

There is one thing... He'd batted around an idea for a code word with Donnie. The problem being, it was never official - Leo just hadn't anticipated a realistic situation where it would be useful. The idea was just idle talk.

He hopes that if Mikey or Raph are alone out there, they'll recognize his reference. Donnie will catch on at least, if he's listening. One way or the other it's the best Leo's got until he can search the rooftops.]


ANy New Yorkers out here? if you know the 2nd Time About shop on Bleeker, contact me ASAP

[Ryan to Dauntless, come in Dauntless...]

Aalso. Look, I got the story from the kidan ans I know i can;t be the first person to ask. But Im looking for any leads on how t get back to my own world... stories, rumuors, anything.

Thankyou.


[Please don't let him be alone out here. Leo presses Return.]



[ tl;dr Enter one cagey ninja turtle boy with delusions of being a Great Hero! Leo v.2012 is here and super worried about his bros ;A; ]

Comments

[seriouslytwisted]

[Leo greatly overestimates Don's ability to determine what is and what isn't important enough to investigate. The guy analyzes sewage in his spare time.

Raph stares hard at Leo, then sighs and looks away, folding his arms. Fine, looks like he'd better spill. Not like Leo wasn't going to find out from Donnie anyway.]

A while ago, when Donnie first showed up, there was stuff going on with the turtle. It was injured and they had work crews and stuff all over the place, so me and Donnie went to take a look.

We uh, we got caught. And got a few days jailtime for our trouble. The guy I talked to was in there, for the same reason we were.

[anything_it_takes]

[Yes, but incredibly useful things result from Donnie's compulsive research. And this is on the track of How To Get Home; Leo at least wants to know why the smartest of the group got a bug up his shell about this particular theory.

But that's only before Leo's brother lays out a handful of words that leave him utterly scandalized. Jail? Ninjas do not get sent to jail. Are you kidding, Raphael got himself caught by the police - how could he possibly have gotten that careless?!

Leo had been joking when he'd teased Raph about going soft when he got here. Now he sees that his brother might not have gotten soft, but lazy? Careless? Leo will go with those.]

A "few days' JAILTIME?!"

[Yeah uh phrasing it casually really did not help at all in the slightest man]

How could you be so careless?!

[seriouslytwisted]

It was Donnie's fault!

[actually it was both their faults but donnie accepted his blame so now he gets all of it

congrats don]

[anything_it_takes]

[SURE it was all Donnie's fault, Raph. Leo knows the both of you too well for that. Of course if Leo had been there he very well may have raised his voice in frustration and gotten them caught himself (and wouldn't Leo in jail have been the most spectacularly sulky thing you've ever seen)... but since he wasn't there, Leo will run with the internal dialogue that his leadership could have averted such an outcome.

However. It's over and done with. They were caught, but they're both free now. Leo would be angrier if jailtime had put them on the map where before they were anonymous, but since the Emperor brought them here the authorities know about them anyway.

Leo sighs heavily, runs a hand over his face and lets the outrage roll away. Now he can think, and now he realizes that his brothers' encounter with the local penal system could yield information.]

Fine.

Tell me about the prison, then. What did you see - does this "guy" you met have a name?

[Leo hopes that HE will never need to know, but better knowledge than ignorance. It's extraordinarily unlikely that prisoners would have been allowed to see anything truly useful about the palace, but Raph knows more than Leo and this is a situation that must be rectified.]

[seriouslytwisted]

[Raphael folds his arms and glares. He's really not digging this bossy tone Leo's pulling with him.] The prison was pretty much carved right into this guy's shell. [He taps his foot against the ground for emphasis.] And it was weird. Apparently this guy affects people with his feelings or whatever; if he was freaked out, I was feeling freaked out. So did everyone else.

[anything_it_takes]

[That's OK bro, Leo's bossiness dissipates in the face of your intel. The idea of any sort of carving hollowing out space inside a turtle's carapace makes Leo's stomach clench.]

If I had an entire prison carved into my shell, I think I would be a little unhappy too.

[So Big Turtle is psychic. Like Rockwell in reverse, projecting emotions instead of reading them. Very good to know.]

How long did they keep you? [Just questions now, so he can know how things are run. Leo's done being cranky about this. Maybe. He'll bring it up at some opportune moment though, you better believe he will.]

[seriouslytwisted]

[Yeah, big Spike's psychic. Which would be cooler if he like, didn't emote all over the place and could actually make words and whatnot. It's more annoying than anything.]

Just a couple days. More like they were trying to keep us out of the way, but some kid said his pals went down into the sewer tunnels all inside of the shell and...saw stuff.

[anything_it_takes]

[Still, that piece of info will help Leo figure out that Asti the dream-visitor is actually Tu Vishan. Well done, bro.]

What sort of... "stuff."

[Somehow Leo knows he's going to wish he hadn't asked.

Also, the sewers are carved into this guy's shell too?! Are the kedan insane?? It's no wonder he's sick!]

[seriouslytwisted]

[Yeah you can imagine how his stomach turned when Raph found out that he was being held prison inside the poor guy's shell. He was not pleased.

Raph shifts his weight, then sighs and folds his arms tight.]

They said they found tanks, and clones of people who were brought here.

[Another shift of his weight. This part bothers him the most.]

And after they found that, the people who showed up stopped getting picked out of the ocean. That's how I got here; they pulled me out of the water. Now people show up in the palace.

[anything_it_takes]

Clones.

[Of course. Clones. This day can stop getting progressively weirder ANY TIME NOW. It's just aggravating at this point, the number of factors he has to contend with. Didn't he say he was done for today? Why couldn't he have stuck with that?

Okay then, clones. Leo furrows his brow and rolls that around in his head for a few moments.]

I don't know what they're doing with those things, but - I remember Donnie talking about cloning once. [Leo doesn't listen in detail to Donnie's science babble any more than the rest of them, unless of course it's useful to the team in some way - though he does like the time with his brother that humoring the resident geek provides - but Donnie went off on an episode of Space Heroes once that had clones in it. So Leo remembers this bit, at least.]

If you clone something, it's just a body. I mean, they wouldn't have our memories, our minds, or - or our scars or injuries. [Leo himself came through with a shoulder burn from the Justin explosion. It still stings. Quite a lot, actually. And what about Raph's plastron scar? How would they duplicae that?]

We've got to find out what they're for.

[seriouslytwisted]

[Something in Raph's shoulders unbunches when Leo says that. No, he hadn't known that; his hand reaches up to the chip in his plastron absently, finger against the jagged edge. So clones wouldn't have their scars or memories, right. Of course.

Not that he'd been worried.]

Yeah, good luck with that. I've tried getting down there a million times; everything's been closed up and I can't hold my breath long enough to get down where they said it was.

[anything_it_takes]

[Yeah, you were worried bro. But Leo finds the prospect disturbing too. Thank goodness he remembers Donnie's rant so he has solid reasoning to back up a denial of this particular existential crisis.

Considering how huge Tu Vishan seems to be, and the fact that he's in salt water, Leo isn't surprised Raph can't make it all the way down there. They put up with a lot of polluted freshwater in the sewers, but saltwater is particularly unpleasant to swim in. As Donatello has said, there's no doubt the four of them are freshwater turtles.]

We'll find a way, we just have to be patient. Maybe Donnie can build something.

[It's always worked for them before. Why not here?]

[seriouslytwisted]

Dunno if you noticed Leo, but there's kind of a lack of junkyards around here. [There's trash, but when Raphael went looking for large, industrial dumps, there weren't very many even in the Metal Sector. It's like they dump all the trash into the ocean or something.] Donnie's good, but even he can't make something out of nothing.

[anything_it_takes]

[Bro, he just got here, he knows crap about the junkyards. Leo knew they would have to find other resources, but that news is harsh. Still, he refuses to be defeated by a lack of junkyards.]

Then I guess we'll have to save our juulan. How much do you guys have left? [Please say you haven't spent it all on food when there must be perfectly good dumpsters around here.]

[seriouslytwisted]

I don't know how much Donnie's got left, but I got maybe fifty. [He's found some in places; you wouldn't believe how much money people drop into the canals.]