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It had been well over a year since the portal closed; at least, that was what was assumed. After all, it was hard to tell the time in a dimension that has no indication of such. Assumptions were easier to make and tally off in sets of five wherever allowed, though often lost in the ever-shifting debris of the prison dimension. Had it truly been a year? Had it been more? It was hard to say for certain for Leonardo. With every passing day, he certainly felt older. This little sacrifice epoch of his had most definitely worn him down, despite his young age.
In his first few weeks of being stuck within the realm, it was a daily occurrence for his prison mate to bang him around, knocking him this way and that, for whatever satisfaction he could get in taking out his wrath upon the turtle. And, during this time, Leo had no choice but to just let it happen. He didn’t want to fight back, and it wasn’t as though he could. He’d been broken, beaten to what he thought at many points was beyond repair, but the Krang would always stop just before he could do away with him. The question of why was one that went unanswered.
Well, mostly.
Leo couldn’t quite recall when the change started to happen, nor could he put a finger on why. The beatdowns, over time, began to grow scarce. A daily fight soon dwindled to every other day, to weekly, to monthly, to… well, Leo couldn’t keep track. There was no longer a ‘schedule’. If the Krang felt the need to fight with Leo, he would. But while it wasn’t exactly a rare circumstance, it didn’t happen anywhere near as often as one would expect, given the events that lead to this point. The Krang simply didn’t fight him anymore, unless given a new reason to. Leo wasn’t about to complain about this.
Their interactions, albeit tense, began to slowly smooth themselves out. There were, of course, no apologies. Whatever mutual ‘truce’ they developed had many unspoken rules that could lead to that truce being broken at any given moment, especially on Krang’s end. More often than not, Leo would say something wrong, and this would lead to a fight. However, Leo also refused to fight back. Lately, the Krang did not take kindly to this, having seen no point in continuing his aggression if there was no pleasure in it.
Whether this was because the Krang somehow found a use for him, or he was keeping Leo alive so that the turtle could suffer along with him as some sort of psychological revenge, or if he was feeling a little lonesome without his left and right brain to stick around with him, Leo didn’t know. It was hard to tell with the Krang, and while he could rule out the villain being sad because he’d end up alone, it was much nicer to imagine that rather than the… not so pleasant alternatives.
They’d both lost everything that day. While Leo knew nothing about the Krang’s emotions, or how he’d felt toward his crazy sister and blocky brother, they had things in common. They had an understanding. Sort of.
The way the two were sitting together now, some might even find it hard to believe that they’d been enemies. Leo was on the ground, his legs crisscrossed as he spoke to the alien on the opposite side of him. The Krang’s face was scrunched in befuddlement, eyes trained intensely upon Leo, the tail of his armor swishing dust up and off of the ground below.
“They’re called memes,” Leo explained, with the beginnings of a grin. “They’re like, the biggest thing on the internet. Everyone uses them. They’ve got a meme for everything. Sometimes, entire franchises can be turned into memes. Kind of like Minecraft. Which is a video game, by the way. But it has dozens of mods and parody songs that make it into a meme. The internet is crazy for it.”
“I fail to see the humor in this,” The Krang responded. “Nor do I have any of the contexts for what ‘Minecraft’ is.”
“It’s a survival game. The entire world is made out of different kinds of blocks that you can break and create things with, but you also need to fight off zombies and other things that’ll attack you. There’s actually this one mob in the game that you remind me of. You’re a bit of a Creeper!” When the Krang quirked a brow at this remark, words quickly poured from Leo’s mouth before he could think. “But, y’know, different! Creepers blow up if you get too close to them. They literally explode. You don’t do that. …Can you do that? No, wait, don’t do that.”
“Enough. Listening to your chatter is grating on my brain.” The alien groaned, and the armor’s hand raised to touch its head in a way similar to pinching the bridge of one’s nose.
This was the norm. The Krang was never one for Leo’s conversational topics, but despite the moaning and groaning, he would still sit and listen to Leo talk for hours on end. When it ended well, it was a refreshing experience and would give him some ease. When it didn’t… well, it certainly didn’t.
“Yeah, yeah, sorry. Anyway, it was a game my brothers and I all really loved. Donnie had a server set up for us, and it was so…” Leo trailed, his face falling. The picture he had tucked away began to feel much heavier the more he became acutely aware of it.
The Krang’s scrutinizing stare upon Leo did not let up. Leo would do this whenever he had accidentally brought up his family, the Krang had noticed. It was pathetic. A weakness such as this was the reason that Leo was in here with him. Sacrifice. Duty. Heroism. It made no sense to the Krang, and he scoffed, the armor shifting position.
Supposedly, Leo felt bold today.
“Those two back on Earth, they were your siblings, right?” the teen asked suddenly, throwing the Krang off. “You called them your sister and brother.” Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to ask about the Krang siblings that could very likely have been captured and blown up, but Leo went ahead and continued with his questioning. “Do you ever miss them?”
It was a stupid question with an easy answer.
“No.” The Krang’s response came easily, but the scowl spreading across his face gave off answers of its own. “Your ideas of family are foreign, and built upon weakness. Your devotion to one another is what makes each of you pitiful.”
“Well, then what were they to you?”
The Krang was growing tired of this barrage of questions. He could feel his wings threatening to flare from underneath the armor, his irritation only rising with each word escaping Leonardo’s mouth.
“Pieces upon the playing board,” the alien sneered, “that were knocked aside by the enemy. If they were not strong enough to survive, then they did not belong in my empire.” The Krang slowly rose, standing at the armor’s full height as he kept his eyes locked upon the turtle below. “While it is a shame to see them perish, they knew the risks of conquest, as we all did.”
Before Leo could speak, the Krang continued.
“You ask me all of this, expecting what? A show of sentimentality? Are you attempting to mock me?” He took a step forward, and Leo felt his heart drop behind his plastron. The Krang’s voice only began to grow louder. “Do you forget that you are the cause of their downfall? Is this a feeble attempt to gloat?”
Leo had no time to protest before he was slammed into the ground, the armor pinning him down with a metallic foot. He wheezed, bringing his hands up to grasp at the armor, trying- and failing- to relieve the pressure upon his chest. The Krang snarled above him, claws digging into the turtle’s shoulders.
Leo was starting to get the feeling that the Krang did, in fact, care for his siblings. But, hey, had to just be a hunch.
There were no further words spoken as the Krang snatched him up from the floor and slammed him back down once more, beginning the vicious assault that would last for a total of two minutes at best. This was normal. It wasn’t anything Leo wasn’t used to. He’d live through it, the Krang would back off, and they’d be mostly fine again later.
His vision began to grow spotty. The Krang had stopped hitting him. Leo’s dazed eyes lazily looked upwards at the Krang, the armor standing over him menacingly, giving off an almost lifelike look to it. Maybe Leo was seeing things when it looked as though the armor was taking heaving, shaky breaths. Or, maybe, that was just its passenger. The Krang’s face looked almost conflicted, brows furrowed as he stared down at the turtle beneath him.
Then he was turning away, without another word. Leo watched the Krang leave his field of vision as everything became dark. He was fine. The Krang would be back in a few days. If he didn’t show up, Leo would eventually stumble upon him again. For now, he just really, really needed to sleep.
It’d be better when he woke up. Who knows? Maybe even his brothers would find a crazy way to get him home. Then he’d never have to see his prison mate again.