Whumptober: Hide & Seek

Whumptober: Hide & Seek

Leonardo jumped another roof, grinning even as he heard Raphael curse his name. Behind him, his brothers struggled to keep up with him on their run, sometimes lagging far enough behind that he had to slow down to keep them close. God, it was good knowing he was still going on strong for somebody with a bad knee.

Still, he probably should give them a rest. He slowed to a stop and turned to them, grinning, while they crouched down, panting.

“Well,” he began, almost thoughtfully to tease them, “Now that we’ve had our warmup, I think it’s time for the actual training to begin.” When he paused, he got multiple yells between gasps, saying that the run was hard enough. He only smiled. What else was he supposed to do as a big brother? Nodding when they quieted down, Leonardo went on, “Thankfully for you, the training isn’t anything hard. Today, we’re playing a game.”

They cheered for just a second, right before Donatello caught on. “Wait a- What game are we playing?” He sounded suspicious, and Leonardo feigned being hurt by that.

“Hide and Go Seek, of course. I’ll be the seeker for this round. You all get a 1 minute head start, starting… Now!”

On his call, they all took off in separate directions, surprisingly running. He felt pride swell up that he couldn’t hear a single footstep from them while they ran away, then sat back and waited, counting the seconds as they ticked by. While waiting, he drew one of his katanas and worked on sharpening it. If he was going to give them a head start, he might as well do something useful in the meanwhile.

After his mental timer went off, Leonardo shot up and sheathed the blade, excited. They better have hid well, because he was on his way.

Leonardo took off after them, completely silent as well. He strained to listen for even the shortest breath or a faint heartbeat that might give them away. The hunt was still thrilling, even as he got older. It always was, he supposed. It was something that got your heart racing when somebody came too close to your hiding spot, as long as it was all in good fun.

To his left, he heard a sharp intake of air, and frowned slightly. Wouldn’t they have hid further away? Unless they were panicking, then he could totally-

It took him a second to realize that that was not one of his brothers. The breaths that whoever it was took were too deep and nasally with a low growl under them. Leonardo turned to the source of the sound, braced for an attack.

As he turned, the source of the sound pounced, claws digging into his arms and ripping up skin and muscle. He grunted and tore away, then glared at his attacker. Of course it was Razhaar. Nobody else had the audacity that he had, somehow. Really, it was a wonder that the dumb dog had survived as one of Shredder’s henchmen with an attitude like that.

Leonardo drew his blades and darted around Razhaar, slashing at his joints specifically to try and take him down as fast as he could. What? He wasn’t going to just leave a game that he had planned.

Razhaar reeled for just a moment before he lunged back at Leonardo and danced around him to avoid getting hit. The pair ended up circling each other, wondering who would be the first to try and attack again. When a long moment passed where neither of them engaged again, it was Razhaar who jumped back into action. Leonardo raised his blades, ready to block the hit and then dart away, but his enemy had faked the move, suddenly twisting to the side and digging sharp teeth into the blue banded turtle’s shoulder.

Leonardo bit back a yelp, instead cutting into Razhaar’s side and darting back. He was still part of a game, and not too far from the starting area. His family would find him soon if he didn’t lead the attacker away.

He wrinkled his beak in annoyance before he turned and ran in a random direction. It didn’t really matter where, as long as it was just away.

As he looked around for a hiding place to collect himself, he found a rooftop that, apparently, with the New York rent prices, had rich enough homeowners to have a large garden situated on top, complete with large, thick bushes and tall grass. That would work well enough.

Silently apologizing to whoever took care of the garden, Leonardo squirmed underneath one of the bushes and curled up as small as he could go, effectively hiding himself under the leaves and branches. It would probably be best if he called one of his brothers now, while he still had the chance, he realized. It was probably decent to let them know now that the game was over.

He reached for his phone and called Raphael, tapping the case while he waited. The first call was declined almost immediately. Which was fair, considering he had no clue what was going on, but it still created a twinge of annoyance in Leonardo.

So he called again, getting declined a second time, and continued to call until the red-clad brother finally picked up.

“Leo,” Raphael groaned, “This is really a new low for you. Are you giv-”

Somewhere above Leonardo, Razhaar jumped down, sniffing a couple times to try and find him.

“What’s-?”

“Shh!” Leonardo hissed, scooching further back and turning on mute. The last thing he needed was for Raphael to hear what was going on.

Razhaar came closer, laughing victoriously. “I smell blood. I know you’re close, freak,” he growled, and Leonardo could hear something shift as the dog mutant looked for him.

He was getting too close to where Leonardo had camped out. He needed to do something, and fast. Looking left and right for another hiding point, his gaze eventually drifted to the edge of the building, then down to the grappling hook on his belt.

He had a plan.

Leonardo started running when Razhaar tore through the bush’s branches with a snarl, fumbling for the tool as he rapidly approached the edge. As he came to it, he turned to give his enemy a two finger salute, then jumped, twisting midair and firing the grappling hook with a prayer that it would hit its mark.

The hook caught the building and sent Leonardo swinging over the road. He grinned, biting his tongue to keep from cheering when he almost ran up the side of a building and rolled into the shadows of a low built sign. Once hidden, he rummaged around in the little medical bag for a roll of gauze so that he would finally stop leaving a blood trail everywhere he went.

After a moment, he remembered that Raphael was still, in fact, on mute. Cheeks burning in shame, he pulled his phone out after finishing with his wounds.

“Hey, sorry about that, got held up.”

“‘Got held up’?” Raphael repeated indignantly, “’Got held up’? How ‘held up’ do you have to be to leave me for ten minutes?!”

“I’m sorry! I just-”

The oldest cut off, breathing hitching. Somebody was there with him. He was still being hunted.

“Come out, turtle,” A familiar voice growled, the sound of blade sliding smoothly out of its hidden sheath following shortly after, “Perhaps your death shall be swift.”

Leonardo took a shaky breath, then lowered his voice to a deathly whisper, right before hanging up. “I’ll call you back.”

I know that bisexual 2012 Leo is quite beloved but may I raise you: Aromantic-Asexual Leo?

He, like his brothers, had been a bubble child for 15 years with little to no contact with other people. When he met Karai, he either had a mad burst of the teenage hornies, or he didn't realize that what he was feeling was platonic affectionate, not romantic

Whumptober: Rise and Shine... Turtle? I Think? (3/3)

After the crash and his kidnapping (could he even call it that? He was already a captive), Leonardo was passed from hand to hand. He went halfway across the country, and then further. They ended up bouncing him across countries, sending him to almost every corner of the world so that multiple people could use him as an attraction, an exotic animal.

He refused to say pet. He was not a pet. The word felt like a toxin on his tongue and in his mind, bitter and sour and bad.

His appearance in private collections called scientists, reports, journalists, the press, everyone who wanted to see what he was. Of course, his existence was not something that people wanted to share. He didn't know a lot about his situation, but he did know that there was a lot of money paid to keep people quiet.

Still, that might have been a dream, or some hallucination. To keep him quiet while moving around, Leonardo was drugged in mass quantities. At that point, he was numb or asleep half the time. Sometimes, though, he'd remember the people he left, suddenly dragged out of the fog. He remembered falling, knowing that he wasn't going to come back. He remembered a violent fight with some sedative, trying to stay awake because people needed him.

It made him sick. He preferred not to remember, and fell back under the influence of the drugs.

Leonardo spent a lot of time getting moved around, unaware of most of it. One day, though, he couldn't sleep at all. He was sick and trembling, unable to move but barely able to do anything else. It clicked that he was addicted. He wanted to throw up.

He could only lay still in the newest enclosure stopping point when somebody came in. There was silence for several minutes, then-

The sound of someone loading a gun was familiar to him after years of fighting Purple Dragons. He froze, did not try to move out of the way, senses and reflexes horrifically dulled.

For a second, he mourned the person he used to be. The one who would fight back, who would run out of the line of fire and immediately disarm whoever was wielding the weapon. Instead, he laid there quietly, sighed softly...

%%%

...And opened his eyes to a sterile, cold, white room.

It was all a dream, he told himself, you never left here. They've been messing with your head.

It was so real, though. The dream was so vivid, he had thought it was real. To say the least, he was unnerved.

Leonardo sat up and leaned against the wall, then felt himself over to see if he was injured at all. Feeling nothing out of sorts, he let out a short sigh of relief. Good, it really WAS just a dream.

The voice over intercoms wasn't, though.

“Good. You’re finally awake.”

Leonardo's heart thrummed loudly, so loud he couldn't hear anything else between that and the blood rushing in his ears. Distantly, he recognized that voice. It was the same person who was making ransoms for him and said that he would make a great subject.

“Don’t worry,” They soothed, as if that was what he was worried about, “That was all in your head, an unfortunate effect of the sedatives.”

That sent him reeling. Now that, that, was something to be worried about. However, he wasn’t really that surprised. He’d had various experiences with tranquilizers throughout the time that he had been stuck with humans.

Still, his heart rate picked up, hammering against his plastron like it was trying to free itself, trying to get a lifetime of beats in before it was, suddenly and untimely, stopped.

He couldn’t breathe. There was silence, the person on comms wasn’t speaking anymore, but it felt too loud even so. Something was in his lungs, and he couldn’t breathe- He couldn’t breathe-

Across the room, a door opened.

%%%

By the stars.

He was finally free.

Over the past (he assumed) few months, he had eyed every possible exit, risky or not, and constantly sized up their security, just in case. His plan had worked, too. Maybe he was a little busted up, and sure, the shock collar they put on him was on the fritz, but he was in one piece and at that point, the area of the burn was numb.

(It probably wasn’t supposed to be numb. He was fairly certain he heard Donatello talking about how once burns got bad enough, they caused permanent nerve damage, which caused a lack of pain or complete numbness.)

(...Yeah, that burn was probably really bad.)

It didn’t help the mood at all that it was raining pretty hard, complete with thunder and lightning. When the collar beeped a few times, it suddenly occurred to him that they might be tracking him. The thought passed quickly and urgently, getting its message across with ease. He needed to hide.

Leonardo trusted his instinct, as that usually went well, and started running. Sure, he needed to find his family, but he also needed to not accidentally get them killed in the process. His captors would most likely find him soon, anyway. There were quite a few options he had for hiding places, but settled for an oceanside warehouse where they kept a lot of fishing equipment. That way, he might be able to escape into the water if anything went wrong. Swimming in the rain was nice, as long as he didn't get struck by lightning in the process.

As he came closer to the warehouse, he slowed down, waiting for the last worker there to lock up and leave. Maybe it would complicate things a bit, but he wasn't known as "The King of Lock Picking" for nothing. He'd just need two needles, or something like that. The windows were also always available.

The windows were also probably the better option.

Leonardo circled the building a few times before climbing up a small boat and breaking the window with a fishing hook he had found lying around. He rolled inside of it, and almost immediately got to trying to rip the collar off. They had to be tracking him, they wouldn’t just not track a human-sized turtle that suddenly landed in their lap. The fishing hook wouldn’t work. With how tight the collar was on him, he would probably accidentally hook it into his skin. Not only that, but he couldn’t feel any kind of buckle or clip that might help him out. He really was stuck. That numbness in the burn was suddenly a very good thing.

Something pounded on the door and his heart leaped into his throat. He was right, he was right he was right they were tracking him they found him-

No. No, there was no time for panicking. He had to act fast or get taken back there, and that wasn’t something he wanted. His gaze flitted around the room, wild and panicked, before he settled for climbing up into the rafters and huddling up there.

The pounding on the door got louder before it suddenly broke open, and people all in black and holding guns flooded in. They fanned out across the warehouse, looking for him in every nook and cranny, and talking in a language he didn’t understand.

He started to slink back over to the window, crouch-walking over the rafters and trying to make as little noise as possible to avoid getting noticed, but somebody finally looked up and pointed him out, yelling something to the others.

One of them raised a gun, and he bolted.

%%%

So, as it turned out, like many Americans, he forgot that there was a South America.

And apparently, that was where he ended up. He didn’t know where on the continent he was, but at least getting back home wouldn’t be such a big problem. Besides the walking. The walking would suck. Directions, at least, weren’t actually too hard to find. He had to steal a map here and there, and was constantly looking for road signs or any kind of signal about where he was in a language he could actually read, but slowly, he had found his way past the border and back into the United States.

So yay for him.

He had to keep wandering for a while, even if it wasn’t the best course of action, while trying to find a good enough map of the whole country and not just the state he was in- Which, happened to be Mississippi. At least it was more rural than it could be.

On his way, he found some kind of farmhouse that reminded him of the summer home April had. For a moment, he longed to be back home instead of across the country again, but it wasn’t like wishes were going to do anything for his journey. If he really wanted it, he reminded himself, then he should keep moving. The sun was going down, though, and from the lack of cars and lights, he considered that the people who owned it had left. It would make good shelter for the night, and he could recalibrate there.

Leonardo, as he had for the hundredth time, broke into the building and went to the highest floor he could to hide. Some people probably wouldn’t think that the top floor was the best place to go to, but with enhanced durability that pretty much no normal person has, it was great for a fast escape when he could just jump from a third story.

He settled down in the attic, between two cardboard boxes after clearing away the cobwebs between them and praying that there were no spiders left over. Almost as soon as he was tucked away, the door downstairs opened. Instinctively he wrinkled his beak. Of course somebody was coming home to a house broken into, of course he was going to get trapped there while waiting for them to leave-

That wasn’t somebody coming home. Somebody seeing marks from a break in would have screamed and called the police, or completely left and then called 911. Instead, he heard them pause downstairs, before they started coming up.

They were coming to the attic.

It had to be one of his captors. They’d been tracking him the entire time, but he always managed to dodge them, how had they managed to catch up? Maybe he had paused for too long, or got distracted, or maybe they were just getting faster in order to keep up with the pace he was setting. Either way, they might have found him. He moved further back and pressed himself against the slanted ceiling, making himself as small as he could to fit at the very back of his hiding as the door opened. He could hear beeping, and all of a sudden, the collar he had beeped too.

Crap.

He could only watch as the white light of a flashlight appeared and scanned the floor, getting closer and closer by the second. His breathing hitched when it settled by the entry to his hiding spot, then settled on him. Leonardo had to squint when the blinding light hit his eyes. He didn’t want to have to look away, not when he was in danger. Somebody leaned down and looked him over. From the looks of it, they were no normal homeowner. In fact, he was probably right. They were probably somebody tracking him. A small smile graced their face as they drew a gun. A small pistol, most likely not enough to kill him if they were to shoot at him, but probably more for putting him in enough pain to immobilize him.

They pulled the trigger.

The gun only clicked.

Almost immediately, they froze, realizing that they had messed up.

Leonardo let himself smirk, then rolled onto all fours and lunged at them, knocking them out of the way and running off. If he could help it, he would get out before they figured out what was up with their weapon. 

And, as long as he was smart about it, he would be out of Mississippi before they could give chase and catch up.

God, he hated this road trip.

Whumptober: It’s A Trap! (No Duh, Genius)

Raphael turned on his heel and stormed out of the room, slamming the shoji behind him. He needed out, out of the room, out of the lair, out of the sewers. It was too small and it suffocated him with his own wrath. The surface was open. There, he would be able to breathe freely, and then come back and apologize when he was ready.

No. He wasn't going to apologize. If anything, he deserved an apology. Leonardo couldn't stop breathing down his neck for two minutes, so really, Raphael had every right in the world to turn on his control freak older brother.

He'd come back when he was ready, and Leonardo would apologize eventually.

Ick, how in the world did they ignore the smell of the sewers? At the moment, it drove Raphael crazy, making him kick the ladder in front of him in frustration before he climbed up. Maybe he was just sensitive at the moment, since he could ignore it at any other time of the day. As he slid out of the sewers and closed the manhole behind him, he took a deep breath to try and soothe his nerves like he had seen the others do so many times before. No such luck, of course. He wasn't called "The Hothead" for nothing.

A familiar sound called to him, something that sounded painfully close to a Star Wars blaster. He knew that sound, knew it made trouble, and went to it with a grin. Mindless violence was good for calming down.

As Raphael approached the small building it was coming from, the sound stopped and magenta lights faded, which only fed his curiosity. Why had they stopped? Had one of the sides won already? He stepped in cautiously, and promptly nearly tripped over the corpse of a metal Kraang body. Looking around, he noted that it almost looked like a normal store you would find around that you had to already know about to find, if you ignored the hollow robot shells strewn across the floor and the gaping hole in the wall. The bodies earned a small frown from Raphael as he picked his way over to the hole. Dang, had he missed all the fun in the few seconds it took to get over here?

Shaking his head, he peered into the crater in the wall first, then noted the staircase and went down slowly. At first, it was dark, but it got brighter the further he went. When he hit the bottom, it actually looked more like something that the Kraang would have built, all chrome and bright purple lining the walls. For a brief moment, he wondered if they had any other designs to use for their bases before he realized that perhaps now wasn't the best time to wonder about that.

Man, this place was weird. No matter where he went, it was completely empty, but clearly built to house people while planning and experiments went on. Raphael, confused, continued to wander around the abandoned base until he stumbled upon more bodies.

Lots and lots of bodies.

Raphael shivered and shifted his weight from side to side. It was probably a good time to leave, since it didn't look like anyone was home, and it felt almost like the apocalypse had happened down there.

But, stronger than his fear was a deep want to find out what was going on. If they were all gone, they were gone for a reason and so help him, he was going to find it.

The fear grew as he kept going. Kraang equipment faded away, scorched and torn up, into an almost normal basement. Or at least, it looked normal, the lighting was extremely dim over there.

Maybe he should call the others, or just completely leave and never speak of it again. It would be nice to just back out while he still had the chance or have company to die with (if he was going to die at all), but something kept pulling him forward. Well, curiosity killed the cat, they always said.

Under one footstep, part of the floor slid down and clicked.

Nothing… Happened?

Well, that was-

Nevermind, wind rushed past Raphael's ears as the floor dropped out from underneath him, and he had to turn his shell to the floor at the last second as an attempt to protect himself.

Freaking ow.

He was certain that if he didn't have a shell, his spine would be dust at that point.

Raphael rolled to his feet with a groan and squinted into the darkness, trying to make out his situation. From the looks of it, he was stuck. The towering walls were smooth, too smooth to climb or get any kind of good grip on, and he hadn't been expecting a mission, so he didn't have any kind of equipment on him that might be helpful.

Dim lighting turned to pitch black darkness as the trap door closed above him, rendering him sightless. Great, could the situation get any worse?

...Apparently so.

There were a few rumbles around him, followed by a loud whoosh that seemed to go on into eternity and the sound of something splattering.

He hoped it wasn't blood, spinning around and focusing on using his tremorsense to find one of the sources. Taking hesitant steps forward, Raphael reached out to where he assumed the sound was coming from, and felt something cold and wet. Almost immediately, he ripped his hand away, startled by the feel of it on his hand. He paused, then raised his hand and gave it a sniff to find out what it was. He couldn't really smell anything and, although tempted to lick it to find out, wiped it off on his belt.

After a few minutes, though, it was pooling around his ankles and rising higher by the second. It was water, he realized. He was going to drown. Panic was the first thing that rose up, fighting to be first in his kaleidoscope of emotions, but he quickly shoved it back down with the thought that it would be alright. He was a turtle mutant, he could swim well and hold his breath for a long time, it would be alright.

...Right?

As the water rose higher, a heavy current took him off his feet. Raphael sank for a second, thrashing, then floated back to the top and found out very quickly that he already couldn’t touch the bottom. It was fine. Everything was fine. He just needed to figure something out real quick.

There was no time to think and plan. By the time he had half an idea together, his head was bumping the ceiling. Soon, he would be submerged.

Raphael saw no point in fighting it, lifting his head as high as he could and taking a deep breath right before he was submerged. Now, with no way to get back to air, he took the time to swim around and try to find an exit. He tried going through where the water was coming from, but the current was too strong, blasting him back and slamming him against the wall. There really was no way out of the trap he got himself into.

At that point, he couldn’t panic when his air finally started to run out and he started to fade. Instead, he welcomed it with open arms, because it was a heck of a lot better than trying to stay awake in a place he couldn’t even get out of.

Light came only after he closed his eyes and accepted the water.

%%%

Raphael frowned when he woke up to grey walls and an oxygen mask on his face. It wasn't that he wasn't relieved about being alive, it was more a nagging worry about how he got where he was. As he shifted around to get comfortable, he ended up realizing he was in a hospital bed. More importantly, somebody was holding his hand.

His gaze drifted to the right, where Leonardo- Gosh darn Leonardo- was sitting on a fold out chair. His hold on Raphael's hand was loose, as he was leaning forward and mostly asleep, but it was probably a death grip sometime before that.

The hothead swallowed down the bitterness that threatened to rear its ugly head, and greeted Leonardo softly, half hoping he wouldn't wake up, "Hey."

Of course, with their Turtle Luck, Leonardo's eyes snapped open as he shot up, blinking sleep out of blurry eyes before he looked at Raphael owlishly. "Oh, hey. How're you feeling?"

"Good," He was not good. His throat hurt and it felt like there was still water in his lungs. He was choking and suffocating and angry, but nothing else would come out of his mouth, the lie rolling off his tongue smoothly.

"I cannot believe," Leonardo mused, hopefully missing Raphael's discomfort, "that you woke up seconds after I wrestled Don to sleep."

As much as he wanted to stay upset, the younger's face relaxed as a short, rasping laugh escaped him, "It's just a habit of ours, I guess."

Leonardo smiled, but it soon faded, leaving him to toy with Raphael's hand as he spoke, words now very serious, "What happened out there? More accurately, what were you thinking?"

And there it was again. The whole reason he left in the first place. Raphael couldn't stop the new wave of anger that rushed in, but he could keep control of his big mouth for at least a minute, "I don't know. I just kept moving, I didn't want someone to die because of some hesitation."

"You could have called me!" Leonardo blurted out, then flinched, and Raphael couldn't help the satisfaction that followed, "Or Donnie, or even Mikey, or April or Casey or literally anyone for backup. You're so lucky that Donnie tracks us and that we found you when we did-"

"I'm sorry, backtrack just a second. He what?" Had he misheard his older brother? There was no way.

"Well," Leonardo began with a little smirk, "Neither of us are supposed to know, so don't say anything about it."

So he had heard the other right. "I- Okay?" He still had to agree, even if he didn't entirely know what he was agreeing to, nor what agreeing to it would start.

The oldest grinned for just a second before going serious again. That was a bad habit they would definitely need to break. "Okay but, seriously, if you find something like that, please call for a partner or backup, something in case anything like that happens again. If you had stayed under longer, you could've drowned."

Darn Leonardo and his magic ability to make anyone guilty, even without realizing it. Raphael sighed softly and resigned himself to his fate, "Sorry."

"It's fine, I'm just worrying," Leonardo quickly reassured.

The two settled into silence after that for a long moment, each doing their own thing, before Raphael spoke up, "So," he began with a mischievous grin, "About those trackers?"

OH MY GOD YES. Literally no cure or way to counteract it, they are just stuck with this as long as the crossover is happening.

If we want to go along the serious curse route, then we could pull a “Howl’s Moving Castle” so that if either of them try to say something in English it forcefully closes and locks their jaw shut until they stop trying, literally taking the ability to speak away from them as it does so. OR, considering that Rise is usually more humorous, we could do the randomized language, so it’s just one of many, many languages. No clue what would determine it but it definitely wouldn’t matter how many people speak the language in modern days.

As for Pig Latin, I looked it up and it says it was formed from English by just swapping letters and adding “ay” to the end, so it would probably still count as English.

But what about fantasy languages? Could they learn and speak Elvish without a problem? What about the Na’vi language, since the dude who made it literally had a PHD in linguistics (I think, its been a minute)? Like, that has to count as it’s own language that they could use, right?

Okay I think I’ve seen a post like this before but I love the thought that the 2012 TMNT boys speak perfect, beautiful, flowing, textbook Japanese and just break into it when they get really upset, so sometimes you just hear Raph arguing that “pineapple does NOT go on pizza what are you doing Mikey-” in Japanese, using one of the best accents you’ve heard (you’d think he’s a native speaker)

And then there’s just. RoTTMNT. They speak English. They picked up a few languages here and there and then dropped them, besides Leo who decided he was also going to speak Spanish.

In a crossover, 2012 Leo yells something at Rise Leo in Japanese, expecting that their Splinter taught them it as well. Rise Leo just shrieks something back in poorly pronounced Spanish and now both of them are confused

I ONLY LOOKED AWAY FOR A MINUTE, PRESUMING THIS WOULD GO UNNOTICED

I FEEL LIKE I GOT JUMPSCARED

I’m in too deep- and no one can stop me… ANATOMY OF THE TURTLES! You are 100% allowed to use this as reference or add on if you think there is something I may have missed. Please credit me if you repost this anywhere thats not a simple reblog. I worked hard on this and I hope it shows!