Leo hadn't realized he'd drifted off in the silent and dark room until a sudden click of metal jolted him into reality. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he pulled himself upright and realized that Karai had unlocked and opened his cage door. He tried to scramble back but there wasn't much area to dodge and she managed to grab him around the plastron and pull him from the cage.
He tried to straighten and shove her hands off but his only reward was his forehead hitting the top of the cage entryway. With a sharp whine of pain, he grabbed his forehead and Karai successfully pulled him out, giving the young turtle a slightly amused grin. "That could have been avoided if you weren't being such a baby."
"Let me go!" Leo responded furiously, resuming his struggle to get her to release him.
She let out an exasperated sigh and completely released her grip, letting him fall onto the back of his carapace. After a shocked yelp of surprise, he scrambled to his feet and tried to dash forward, but Karai stooped down to grab his mask tails and yanked him back to the ground.
"Where do you think you're going?" She teased as she shifted in front of him, blocking his escape route as Leo sat up nervously.
Scrambling back and holding out a hand defensively, he begged, "Leave me alone!"
"Rule one of sidekicking." Karai stated as she grabbed his wrist and tugged him to his feet. "Don't tell me what to do."
"I'm not your sidekick!" Leo snapped in return, pulling his arm back and stomping his foot.
"You mean not yet." She replied patiently.
"No, I mean never!" Leo shouted, a flash of red suddenly catching his eye. With a terrified gasp, he scrambled away from it and behind Karai, desperately trying to find where the imagined beast had gone.
Karai studied the fearful terrapin curiously and then turned to the corner that he was watching, proceeding to glance upward and spotting one of her footbots had shifted to hiding on one of the roof posts near the ceiling. Aware that he hadn't seemed all frightened of the footbots when he practically barreled around them a few hours ago, she glanced back down at him and mused, "What's up with you?"
"There's monsters." He warned in a low tone, giving their surroundings a nervous scan.
"Monsters?" She mumbled wryly, trying to keep her amusement from her tone. "Geez, you really are a kid, aren't you?"
Ever the opportunist, she crouched down and put on her most serious expression as she placed a hand on Leo's shoulder. She felt him flinch nervously as he turned to face her and she calmly replied, "If it helps, the monsters only eat bad kids, so if you listen, then you don't have to worry about them devouring you."
Sapphire eyes widened in horror and Karai got back to her feet, hiding her smirk as she turned to make her way towards the door. Glancing back upon realizing the apprehensive turtle was standing where she'd left him, she commanded, "Follow me."
Fearing for his life, Leo didn't hesitate to dash after her and into the hall. Moving to her side, he wrung his hands as he followed her down the corridor before anxiously asking, "Wh-where are we goin'?"
"The dojo." Karai said coolly. "I promised you some training, didn't I?"
Leo shot an uneasy glance to the sword on her belt as his heart seemed to sink into his chest, wondering if he was better off with the turtle-eating monsters...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A tense silence followed the ninja brothers as they headed across the rooftops, Raph taking great care not to meet the gazes of any of his younger brothers. He was still trying to figure out why Splinter could possibly believe that he was the best person to lead this team when they all knew it was his fault that Leo had gone missing in the first place.
Donnie would have been a better choice, he was the one who kept insisting that he was the only responsible brother in the group. Then again, the main reason that they'd lost Leo in the first place was because Donnie hadn't been paying attention and let him wander off with the mutagen tracker.
He didn't realize he'd been sending a seething glare in Donnie's direction until the genius glanced up from the GPS app to scope their surroundings and spotted him, instantly bristling in offense as he came to a halt on the rooftop. "What?"
"Nothing." Raph snapped quickly, turning away and pretending to be more interested in watching a car drive by on the street below.
Mikey could sense the ever-growing silent hostility between the two and suddenly realized that someone was sure to snap if something wasn't done soon.
Jumping into the role of the peacemaker that Leo wasn't around to fill, Mikey jogged over to Donnie and swiped the t-phone from his hands, holding it upside down and shaking it a few times as he asked. "Are we close? Which dot is Leo? Would his dot be smaller 'cause he's small now? How come this isn't work-"
"It's working just fine!" Donnie snapped as he ripped the t-phone back from a pouting Mikey's grip, holding it out of reach in case the jokester tried to take it back. "And Leo doesn't have a dot. We're tracking the tracker, remember?"
"I knew that." Mikey agreed quickly, earning an exasperated eye roll as Donnie turned back to the map. He blatantly ignored the curious blue eyes that peeked over his shoulder as he zoomed in on the tracker, trying to decide a general direction to head.
"This way." Donnie suddenly announced, making a sharp turn and practically elbowing Mikey, who stumbled back to avoid the blow. Distracted gaze back on the t-phone, Donnie simply started off across the rooftops and Mikey waited for Raph to follow before he dashed after them. The silence spawned off and on, only broken when Mikey tried and failed to get his stressed brothers to talk to him in a way that didn't involve yelling.
Trying to keep himself distracted from his own stress and worry by discovering how to cheer up his brothers, he didn't realize how well his self-distraction had worked until Raph was grabbing his wrist and dragging him in the opposite direction than he'd been headed. He gave Raph a confused look that the hothead ignored as he pulled him into the alleyway below, where he found that Donnie must have entered earlier, his immediate older brother seeming to study the underside of a dumpster.
Before he had a chance to advise him that under-the-dumpster pizza was one of the few pizzas you should never eat, Donnie pulled out the familiar mutagen tracker and held it up for both Raph and Mikey to see.
"So he was in my lab." Donnie muttered, turning it back towards him and brushing off the screen as his expression flickered with guilt. "Wish I had thought to look up..."
"Which means it's not all my fault." Raph stated almost triumphantly, earning an annoyed look.
"No, it definitely is." The genius shot back with narrowed eyes. "But we're going to discuss that later. First, we have to find Leo."
Mikey had already gotten started on the search, the worried jokester calling out Leo's name as he moved about the alley, eyes wide with fear as he searched behind any small spaces. It wasn't long until they'd broadened their search over the alleyways of the entire block, keeping in contact via their t-phones.
A sudden burst of incomprehensible shouting from Mikey before he suddenly hung up on them sent both brothers dashing to his location, and they arrived to see him holding Leo's belt and tanto in one hand and throwing star with a Foot symbol in the other, staring at them as though this was proof of all his worst fears combined.
He handed them over to Raph when his older brothers came to a halt at his side. As Raph looked them over with a pile of dread forming in his chest, Donnie nervously voiced, "The mutagen tracker, the Foot shuriken, it must have been some kind of-of mutagen trap laid out for us..."
"One Leo walked right into." Raph replied in a low tone, grip on the belt hilt tightening.
"So Shredder has Leo?" Mikey asked, this conformation splashing horror across his expression.
"Not Shredder." Donnie assured him. "Though I'm sure bringing us to him was the main intent. If I'm right, I'm betting the trap was constructed by Karai, considering she prefers to handle the attacks and capture of us herself. And if Karai found Leo then I'm certain she'd want to keep him around for a while to mess with him. Which means we have some time to locate him before Karai gets bored and Leo gets into big trouble."
"So we just need to find him before then so I can figure out some kind of plan too-" Raph told them, narrowing his eyes as he tried to construct his thoughts.
"Woah, woah, woah, you make the plan? Who made you the leader?" Donnie demanded, crossing his arms as he shot him an accusing look.
Returning his stare with a defiant one, he stated. "Splinter did. Right before we left."
Donnie's mouth opened and closed as though he was uncertain how to respond to this, the sullen genius falling silent as he realized that Raph wasn't stupid enough to lie about Splinter. He glanced over at Mikey who gave a half-shrug and then he snapped. "Fine then. What are we supposed to do now, oh, hotheaded leader?"
Ignoring his mocking words and pouting tone, Raph suddenly realized that this was actually a valid question and turned away from his younger brothers as he tried to figure out how to answer. The last thing he wanted was for them to think him as unsuited for this position as he knew he was.
What was he supposed to do? What would Sensei expect him to do? What were they wanting him to do? What did they expect from him?
Leo would know what to do. Even if the plan was flimsy at best and likely to get them all killed, he would have a stinkin' plan. But he wasn't Leo. Leo wouldn't choke under this pressure! So maybe the better question would be....
What would Leo do?
Raph released his grip on the belt in his hands, staring at it almost as though he was trying to find the answers to his unspoken question somewhere on it.
Leo would try to place himself one step ahead of the enemy. He would figure out why'd they'd have taken one of us and where they would have taken us. Then when he found us, he would figure out a plan to get us out of there, and he wouldn't rest until we were safely out of the Foot's hands.
Turning back to face his waiting brothers, Raph tried to collect his racing thoughts as he mused, "Karai took Leo to mess with him, but she doesn't want dear old dad knowing she has him yet, right? Which means she can't take him to Foot hideouts where she might be seen with him. She needs a place that she can hang out freely in, probably out of sight of Shredder's radar."
"Didn't she, like, use one of Bradford's training dojos last time she had Leo?" Mikey questioned, trying to keep up with his brother's train of thought.
"That was to lure us in." Donnie pointed out. Mikey frowned in disappointment at his idea being shot down but brightened when Raph added. "But one of Bradford's dojos could be it. If she was trying to lure all of us in the first place, why wouldn't she try again? I say we find the nearest dojo and head there."
"I don't know..." Donnie said hesitantly. "This seems like a bunch of theoretical conclusions based on little actual evidence-"
"You got any better ideas, genius?" Raph shot back, crossing his arms with a satisfied air.
All the brothers knew the answer to his demand even before Donnie mumbled a reluctant "No" and Raph and Mikey were halfway up the fire escape before they became aware that Donnie wasn't following. They glanced down to see that he was back to looking at the map on his t-phone with a raised eye ridge, the leading hothead about to demand that he hurry up and follow when he lifted his head and t-phone to wave up at them.
"Hey, Raph?"
Giving a low growl that warned against Donnie doing anything else to annoy him as long as he wanted his arms to stay attached to his body, he glared down at the infuriating grin that his immediate younger brother was failing to hide.
"Yeah, so, the nearest dojo is actually that way..."
Donnie jerked a thumb behind him and Raph could see the smirk clearly now, the hothead pausing for a moment before he released the side of the fire escape and dropped to the ground. As Mikey dropped down behind him, he snapped. "Don't look so cocky."
Donnie's smirk only widened as he turned and made his way to the rooftops on the other side, the hothead clenching his fists until a hand touched his shoulder. Turning the accusing glare to Mikey, he met a bright smile as he reassured, "Don't worry, dude, you got this leader thing covered. I'm sure we'll find Leo in no time."
Raph relaxed his shoulders slightly before he let out a soft grunt and shrugged Mikey's hand off. "Whatever. Let's just go catch up with Mr. Smug over there."
Mikey saluted him and charged from the nearest dumpster, leaping on and then back off the lid, grabbing the end of the fire escape and pulling himself up. Rolling his eyes but feeling a tiny bit lighter, Raph glanced up to make sure Donnie was waiting on the edge of the rooftop before he charged after his younger brothers.
Don't worry, lil' bro, we'll find you...