Chapter Text
Leo was usually good at predicting.
People had patterns, animals acted on instinct, and mushrooms grew in the shade. It was just a matter of circumstances and a little variety.
And yet no matter how good he was there was no way in hell the mutant thought this would happen.
The orange almost golden glow of Mikey’s portal brought such a sense of utter hope. But of course it was immediately soured by a weight slamming full force into his already injured carapace. As the wind was knocked out of his lungs, the terrapin swore he heard a strangled gasp. At some point afterwards he promptly passed out.
If Leo is completely honest he doesn’t remember much of that night, just flashes of things. It was like looking through stained glass, nothing but a blur.
Where his memory picks back up is waking in the infirmary.
Leo shook the thoughts out of his mind as he came to a stop in front of the cell, the one that held him .
He leaned down and unlatched the window cover, letting it snap up. The room was roughly a ten by ten, metal walls with nothing inside. Nothing except the dull pink form hunched in the corner.
It was a miracle Mikey shut the portal before Krang got all the way out. It grimly made Leo think about what being chopped in half must feel like.
Green knuckles knocked a lazy pattern into the military grade glass. Unlike the first few times Krang didn’t bolt up and try to throttle him. It wasn’t him calming down, just the realization that Donnie’s tech was nothing to sneeze at.
The mad scientist had somehow gotten that experimental blue liquid to thread through the walls, floor, ceiling, and in between the two panes of glass that made up the tall window.
Leonardo may have had only a vague idea of how it worked, but he did know it worked well.
Krang once cracked the wall, the tiny pipes holding the substance burst, and burned off a half a dozen tentacles one time, he didn’t try again. At the very least he was willing to be a little civil, even if it was for his own benefit.
“Is there a reason for your presence or are you just here to stare, pest?”
Krang sneered out and the slider mutant could only roll his eyes.
“Yeah yeah I was getting to that, don’t get your tentacles in a twist. I just have a question I need answering.”
A flicker of interest crossed Krang’s uneven face. He tugged himself into a more upright position. It was honestly impressive for someone still missing their lower half.
“What could you possibly have to ask me?
Leonardo turned and flopped down with his back to the ceiling tall glass.
“The Technodrome. How does the connection work?”
“Are you asking because of the little pilot ?”
Leo paused for a hot second, it took a moment to process.
“If you mean Donnie, the softshell with the machine hyperfixation then.. Yeah, asking because of him. You literally ripped him out of it. Is there a chance of-”
“Of pieces of the technodrome still being in his back? Yes. The technodrome tends to be very clingy so to speak.”
“Fuucckkkk.”
Three fingered hands dragged down the red stripes.
“Krangie, could you do a homie a solid and just order it to leave?”
Leo asked while laughing humorlessly. Krang scoffed, mouth curled into an offended frown.
“What in that idiotic brain of yours makes you think it works like that??”
There was a shrug from the turtle mutant and a heavy sigh in response.
“I wouldn’t help get it out even if I could! I can’t, considering that some little brat cut me in half!”
“Hey Mikey is not a brat! Mi hermano is the epitome of non-brattyness. Well sometimes- but that’s beside the point!”
Krang only muttered something about never understanding human names. After a while it settled back into silence. Leo rubbed his palms into his eyes, grumbling under his breath. Krang glanced over before speaking up.
“What’s wrong with you? You look exhausted.”
“Just woke up on the wrong side of the bed, I’ll live.”
Krang stared at the terrapin on the other side of the glass. Leo looked back for a while before yielding.
“Yeah, yeah I know. Usually better at lying. Insomnia has been kicking my ass, stress makes it worse.”
“Insomnia?”
Leo blinked hard.
“You don’t know what insomnia is??” A confused look was all Leo got. “Oh, it’s like.. It’s when your body has trouble staying asleep, falling asleep, or having a restful sleep. Before you ask why, insomnia can happen for a multitude of reasons and I don’t know why I have it.”
A snicker interrupted Leo before he could continue.
“You creatures are much weaker than I first thought! This is why-”
“Do you ever do anything for fun?”
Krang paused for a beat.
“Excuse me?”
“Well, you and the other Krang are always going on and on about how you are the superior species but is that all you think about? Like in the prison dimension did you just talk about how much better you are? Or did you actually do something?”
He flexed a few of the tentacles he still had, a far off look in his eyes. Krang looked more annoyed than he sounded.
“We often fought to see who got to make decisions or hone our skills, but sometimes we’d do it just to pass the time. There was next to nothing in the prison dimension.”
“It didn’t look like much.”
A nod from Krang was all the response the mutant got.
Leo got himself comfortable, or as comfortable as you could when laying against a metal wall. It went quiet again, not wanting to keep talking. It was odd, the silence was kinda awkward but the comfortable kind of awkward. No need to pretend.
· · ────── ✧·🜲·✧ ────── · ·
It took Krang a while to notice the soft snores coming from the turtle.
He should have noticed sooner, however he was busy ignoring the other’s existence. It soon stopped working. Although as infuriating as the hero was, annoyance wasn't the only thing the turtle brought up. Honestly, confusion was the main thing Krang felt.
What even was he?
Definitely not a human and much too different from an average turtle. Krang considered a kappa a couple of times but he lacked the hole full of water in his head. And no other creature had been able to fight back, no none except for them . The other turtle, the soldier, hadn’t given any answers. Krang hadn’t thought to view those memories, now a slight regret.
Glancing up to look through the blue glass, analyzing the foolish hero. Back facing Krang as he slept. Seeing the cracks that ran deep into his shell.
And yet he lived.
Krang kept watching, even if he didn’t fully know why. At least it was something besides the almost madding gray that blanketed the cell. And maybe, as much as he hated to admit, the turtle had become an interesting mystery he could dissect.
Despite being so different, Krang felt something familiar from the little hero.