Trick: Leo and Draxum
Had an idea here for an End Game AU where:
the boys don't escape, and for whatever reason Splinter can't break out either
Draxum reads the room a little better on what will happen when he puts that Dark Armor on
the boys did a better repair job on the helmet
idk what specific warnings to put on this but uh Leo is straight up not having a good time
---
Leo sees Draxum coming toward their cage, and knows they've run out of time to try for an escape attempt. Instinctively he moves closer to his brothers. He feels them closing ranks beside him, too.
"Now now, there's no need for such ugly looks." Draxum looks entirely too smugly satisfied as he surveys them, just outside of striking range on his side of the bars. "You should feel honored. I have a place for each of you in my glorious army."
"Thanks, but we're too young to enlist," says Leo automatically. He feels Raph shift behind him.
"And yet that hasn't stopped you from interfering with my plans at every turn. But that ends now."
Draxum crosses his arms behind his back, looking over each of them in turn. Leo doesn't like it at all; it makes him feel like a piece of meat being considered for grilling.
"Each of you will have your use," Draxum continues. "Snapping turtle, you are incredibly strong, both physically and mystically. And I have seen you lead your team. Rough around the edges to be sure, but you will make a fine general.
"Box turtle, you have an unusually high amount of untapped mystical energy. Under my instruction, you will become someone truly formiddable.
"And softshell, you are clearly highly intelligent. A shame you have wasted your talents on the human schools of invention, but rest assured, I can teach you all you need to know.
"And finally, the red-eared slider."
"Don't forget my winning personality and gorgeous smile," Leo quips.
In response, Draxum regards him coolly.
"Compared to your brothers, you are mediocre in every way. Your mystic potential is above average, but much weaker than the rest. You are not nearly so strong or intelligent, and while you have some physical talent, it's outweighed by your insufferable attitude."
It shouldn't sting. It shouldn't. Draxum's just a crummy villain, who cares what he has to say?
Leo chuckles nervously, shuffling back. "Mediocre? No way, I'm the best! Come on, guys, tell 'im."
This is where his brothers should chime in. Donnie should say, "No, he's right." Or Mikey should back Leo up, shouting down Draxum.
None of that happens. Instead, Raph is the one who moves, putting a hand on Leo's shoulder and physically moving him to the back, putting himself bodily between Leo and Draxum.
"None of us are joinin' your army," Raph growls.
"This is not something you have a choice in." Draxum waves a hand. "Now, I will be taking the slider with me."
Abruptly the bottom of the cage under Leo starts to sink, and he yelps, flailing his hands out for his brothers. Donnie and Mikey grab on, trying to hold him, but as the bottom of the cage falls out a strong vine grips his ankle and yanks, pulling him out of their grasp.
"Leo!" they yell after him.
Outside the cage, Leo hangs suspended in vines that grip him by every limb and around the middle. Draxum turns on his heel and walks away, and the vines carry him along after.
He tries to turn back and see his brothers, who are still making a racket, tries to smile reassuringly, but the vines hold him too tightly, and he can't.
"Hey, hey," he says. "If I'm so mediocre, what do you even need me for, huh?"
"Relaaax," says Draxum, with an easygoing tone that Leo doesn't like at all. "I said I had a place for each of you, and I meant it."
The first thing Leo sees as they enter the next room is the Dark Armor, standing fully complete at the top of a dais. The next thing he sees is his dad, trapped inside a similar cage - the moment he sees Leo, he rushes to the bars, slamming at them hard.
It doesn't even make a dent.
"Draxum!" he roars. "You said you would let them go!"
Draxum looks over at Splinter, shrugging.
"I lied."
Leo doesn't have to wonder what kind of deal his father made for their release. That helmet wasn't there before.
"I kept wondering why the Foot Clan was so eager for me to get inside the Dark Armor when before they had been so adamantly against me getting anywhere near it," says Draxum, talking about things Leo frankly couldn't care less about. "And then I realized... there is... a hunger in this armor. It will not awaken to its full strength until it is fed."
He looks back at Leo with a smile. "That's where you come in."
"Oh no, it doesn't want me," says Leo fast. "I'm way too lean! At least fatten me up for a few weeks first."
"It does not want you flesh, fool. It wants your mystic energy."
Leo grimaces. "Well, you just said I'm pretty mediocre in that department, soooo..."
"I said you are weaker than your brothers. But you still have plenty to sate the armor."
"You sure? I mean, maybe you should find someone with more, uh, mystic energy juice."
Draxum pauses, turning to look him in the eyes. "Very well. I suppose I could go get the box turtle-"
Leo swallows hard. "No," he says, voice resolute. "Not him."
"Good. Then we are agreed."
"No!" shouts Splinter, and he sounds so terrified that it shakes Leo. His dad has never sounded like that. "Draxum, please! He is just a child!"
"Again with this objection when it never seemed to matter before," says Draxum, like he's bored. He begins pulling Leo toward the armor.
"Please! Don't do this!" Splinter slams into the bars again, but they don't budge. "Take me instead! Just do not do this to him!"
"Shut up, you doddering old rat," snaps Draxum, and vines wrap around Splinter, silencing him. "I still have my uses for you, too. Don't worry - I can always make you a replacement son."
"No replacing perfection," says Leo, feeling lightheaded and nonsensical, and a vine around his mouth silences him, too.
He's pulled on the dais. Draxum slides each piece of the armor onto his body, one by one. It's too big for him, and he feels like he's being swallowed by some gaping maw, sliding down into the stomach of a fearsome beast.
This is where the rescue is supposed to happen. His brothers are supposed to burst in, having made a daring escape. His dad is supposed to display some heretofore unseen power and kick Draxum's butt. Divine intervention from his ancestors is supposed to shield him, and he should be free to go home, where he can laugh with his family about the whole crazy incident and how he's apparently good for nothing but a blood sacrifice to a demonic spirit.
The rescue doesn't happen. Instead, he watches, eyes wide and full of fear, breathing too fast against his gag, as Draxum smiles gleefully and puts the helmet on.
The pain is indescribable. The vines finally fall away from his mouth, and it doesn't matter because all he can do is scream.
Draxum was right; there's something hungry in the armor. It's eating him alive now, not his flesh but his spirit, ripping the energy right out of his veins, peeling him apart at the seams. It feeds on him, on every part of his flagging mind - even his fear is delicious to it. And when he feels like he has no more he can give, when he's certain that this is the end, when the darkness starts to roll over his consciousness, pulling him down, he hears a voice - one full of hatred and rage and a dark satisfaction.
Thank you, Hamato.
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