The Turducken
Leo hardly registered Harry, Ron, and Hermione’s shock, trying to overcome his own.
The Turducken? From the farmhouse? Here?
Thoughts raced through his head, too many to count, and he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe—
The world turned to slow motion when the Turducken lunged, snapping its neck toward them. In his shock, Leo was too slow to react, and he braced himself for the pain of the impact.
But a flash of red leapt passed him, and then Raph was tackling the mutant’s head back, knocking it aside.
“Come on!” he shouted. His eyes were pure white, and Leo almost smiled. “We’ve got to get the others to the door.”
Leo looked past the fight between the Turducken and his brother, seeing a large, brown oak door on the other side of the chamber. He nodded, drawing his wand and wracking his mind for the charms he and his brothers had gone over.
“Confundus!” he bellowed, pointing at the thrashing mutant. The spell hit it, but the Turducken only paused for a moment, blinking. Then it screeched, shooting forward so quickly Raph had to dive out of the way in order to avoid being crushed by its legs.
Donnie shoved himself in front of Leo. “Immobulus!” he yelled. It froze for a moment longer than it had before, long enough to allow Leo and Donnie to get out of its way before it came crashing forward. Leo looked toward Mikey and realized he was sticking by Harry and the others, guiding them to the other side of the door.
“Uh, dudes?” he said, eyes wide. Leo turned back to the Turducken, and his own eyes widened as smoke curled from its mouth.
“Well, that’s new,” he said, right before he tackled Donnie out of the way of the wave of fire that shot from its mouth.
“It breathes fire?” Raph asked from where he stood off to the side. “Since when? How is that possible?”
“How is any of this possible?” Donnie called, pushing himself back onto his feet. “I thought we killed it in the geyser explosion!”
“Well, obviously we didn’t,” Mikey said. Unfortunately for him, his voice drew the attention of the Turducken, and it whirled on him. He froze as it reared its head back, preparing to strike.
Raph yelled, leaping at it. He landed on the Turducken’s neck and tried to wrangle it away from his brother. The Turducken thrashed, trying to throw Raph off, but Raph held tight.
“Can we help?” Hermione asked. Her wand was drawn, though she trembled where she stood.
“NO!” Donnie and Leo shouted at the same time.
“Mikey, get them through that door, now!” Leo ordered, sheathing his wand. “Guys, spells aren’t doing anything to it!” He drew his katanas, hardly paying any mind to the sharp gasps from Harry and Ron.
He lunged, slicing at the Turducken’s exposed chest as it thrashed. It roared, and Raph jumped from its neck as it stumbled backward.
“Finally,” he said, unsheathing his sais. He twirled them in his hands and smirked, jumping at the injured Turducken and stabbing its shoulders.
“Let’s do this,” Donnie said, spinning his bo as he lunged as well.
Mikey joined the fray, wrapping the chains of his kusarigama around the Turducken’s neck. “Aw, yeah, baby! I’m back!”
While the Turducken was held back, Leo ran at it, intending to separate its head from its body.
A screech filled the air, so loud Leo nearly fell to the floor in pain. His head screamed, and his heart pounded in his ears at the sound. Mikey yelled as the Turducken escaped from its chains. The flap of its powerful wings threw them all backward, and Leo groaned when his back hit the wall.
“Watch out!”
Raph dove, tackling Leo to the ground as flames burnt the stone where he had just been standing.
“Mikey, the others, NOW!” Leo said.
Mikey nodded, resolute. He flipped his way across the chamber, dodging the swing of the Turducken’s claws as it lifted itself up, up, up in the air.
“We have to get it back on the ground!” Donnie said, rolling to the side to avoid the sharp stab of the Turducken’s beak. “Go for its wings!”
The sound of a door shutting gave Leo some semblance of relief. At least the others were safe to go through and get the Stone. Now all he and his brothers had to worry about was—
Well, they still had to worry about a lot.
“Raph, give me a hand!” he said, sheathing his katanas. Raph nodded, and Leo sprinted forward, jumping and using Raph as a boost to get higher. He wrapped his arms around the Turducken’s neck and held on tight, gritting his teeth.
“Come on,” he murmured, holding on for dear life as the Turducken thrashed, rising higher. He glanced down at the floor, and his stomach dropped—Ohh, boy, that’s a long fall.
His hands slipped, and gripped a little harder, swinging himself up so he was sitting on the Turducken’s neck.
This was a lot easier when April could tell me what to do, he thought, pushing away the sharp pain that came at the thought of his old friend. His distraction cost him, though. He was thrown off of the Turducken’s neck, landing on its back. He seized the feathers, trying to stay on and balance himself. But then—
“LEO!” his brothers screamed.
Leo looked up and shoved himself off the Turducken just as a wave of flames shot out at where he was sitting. He screamed as he fell, and the floor rose up, up, up to meet him—
A body slammed into him from the side, absorbing most of the blow, but Leo’s head still hit the floor with a painful thud. Leo groaned, lying on his back as Mikey’s worried face came into focus.
“You okay, bro?” he asked. Leo nodded and pushed himself up, sucking in a breath at the pain in his head.
“What… what happened?”
Mikey wrapped Leo’s arm around his shoulder and eased him down into the corner of the room. “Apparently, the Turducken is fire-resistant,” Mikey said, making sure Leo was okay. “Or it doesn’t feel its own fire.”
“Or it just doesn’t care,” Raph chimed in, jumping backward and snarling at the Turducken.
“That, too,” Mikey conceded, looking at Leo in concern.
Leo grabbed his head, blinking away the dots at the edges of his vision.
“You just say here, okay, bro?” Mikey said softly, glancing behind him to make sure his brothers were okay. Donnie yelled, using his bo to propel him forward.
“I’m fine,” Leo said, trying to stand up. When had the world started spinning?
“Dude, just stay here. We’ll take care of it,” Mikey said.
“I said, I’m fine,” Leo snapped, but there was no real bite to it. The pounding in his head hurt too much for him to really be angry.
“Why don’t you just sit down and listen to us for once, you moron?” Raph asked angrily, throwing a sai at the large bird-fish-worm thing.
“Yo, Dee, could you get over here?” Mikey called, looking at Leo in worry. “I think he’s got a concussion.”
“Little busy here,” Donnie said, dodging the scorching-hot fire shot his way.
“I’ll tag you in!”
Mikey and Donnie traded places, and Leo groaned as Donnie looked over him with a medic’s eye.
“Definitely a concussion,” Donnie said, pulling his wand out. “Episkey,” he murmured.
The pain in Leo’s head subsided enough for him to look up without immediately recoiling in pain. He started at the small scraps on Donnie’s skin, blood dribbling down the side of his face, and the slightly-charred tips of his tallest brother’s hair.
“You’re—”
“Leo, I’m fine,” he said. “How’s your head?”
“Better,” Leo said. “But not great.” He stood up. “Good enough to fight, though.”
Donnie frowned. “ Episkey normally only heals more minor wounds, but I suppose it’ll do.” He glanced at Leo. “You ready?”
Leo nodded, resolute, and stood up to face the fight. Mikey was currently hitting the Turducken repeatedly in the face with his kusarigama, trying to dislodge Raph’s sai, which had gotten stuck in its beak when Raph threw it. Unfortunately for them, the sai didn’t actually seem to be hurting it, more of an annoyance than a pain. Raph was trying to tug the sai out while also avoiding the Turducken’s flames, holding on to the handle of his weapon. All in all, it was not a very pretty sight.
“Alright, Donnie,” Leo said, surveying the scene. “How did this happen?”
“I’m not sure,” Donnie said, eyes darting back and forth between his brothers and the Turducken. “I—there’s no way the original Turducken could have survived the geysers, but maybe… maybe it was revived here, like we were. And maybe, just like how we were all turned into humans, it was somehow given the ability to breathe fire.”
Another question tugged on them both, but they shoved it aside as they leapt into battle. Donnie joined Raph, pushing up with his bo to lodge onto Raph’s foot, which was hanging off the side of the Turducken’s face.
“That’s not very helpful!” Raph screamed, gripping the handle of his sai harder. The Turducken screeched as the blade dug deeper into its beak—it seemed to feel it more now, anyway.
Donnie rolled his eyes and swung up and over Raph, landing on the very top of the Turducken’s head.
Meanwhile, Leo ran over to Mikey. His head was still pounding, but the pain was manageable. Still, he had to really concentrate to focus the world and get rid of the blurriness that threatened to overtake his vision.
Mikey’s chain wrapped around the handle of the sai—and Raph’s hand.
“MIKEY!” Raph yelled. Mikey’s eyes widened.
“Sorry, dude!” he called. He yanked on the chain, then chuckled sheepishly. “I can’t get it unstuck!”
“Oh, when this is all over, I’m gonna—”
He was cut off by Donnie’s scream. Donnie had been trying to manually dislodge the sai, but when he slipped, the Turducken’s beak had scratched his back—hard. Blood followed his path as he fell, and he was only saved by grabbing onto Raph’s foot again at the last minute.
“Donnie!” Raph said, looking down at his brother in terror. Donnie was just barely conscious, and blood soaked through the back of his robe, turning it to a dark brown.
“Hang in there, Dee,” Mikey said, abandoning his weapon altogether. He sprinted to where his brothers dangled off of the Turducken, getting there just in time to catch Donnie as he fell the rest of the way to the floor.
“Two for two!” Mikey cheered, but then his eyes widened in terror. “Donnie? Donnie, dude, wake up!”
Leo rushed over, wand drawn. His mind raced—what was that spell Donnie had said? And would it even work? Oh, God, there was so much blood—it soaked through Donnie’s robe and onto the arms of Mikey, who was panicking.
“Donnie, Donnie, Donnie, Donnie, Donnie,” he said over and over again, shaking his brother, even as he refused to set him down. “Donnie, Donnie—”
“Turn him over,” Leo said, voice shaking. Oh God oh God oh God. “I need to see the injury.”
He helped Mikey turn Donnie over, and bile rose in Leo’s throat at the sight. “Go help Raph,” he said. “Now.”
Mikey seemed reluctant to move, but one sharp look from Leo had him leaping back into battle. “Come on, Donnie,” he whispered. There was so much blood, so much blood, so much blood, and he was kneeling it in, and it seeped into his robes, and—
“Episkey!” he shouted, but it didn’t seem to do much. No, no, no. “ Episkey! ” he said again. Donnie groaned, and Leo repeated the spell over and over.
“It’s not working!” he groaned. He looked at his hands and tossed his wand aside, an idea popping into his mind. “Rin,” he chanted, placing his hands on Donnie’s back. They immediately went sticky with his blood, but Leo didn’t even notice as he continued, “Pyo. Toh.” His energy surged, concentrating on Donnie’s back. “Sha. Kai.”
His eyes grew blurry, but he blinked away the spots forming at the edge of his vision. “Jin. Retsu. Zai.” His heart beat in his chest as he felt Donnie’s skin slowly stitch itself back together. “Zen. Rin. Pyo. Toh.” Again and again, he chanted, even as his head grew light. Donnie would die if he didn’t do this.
“Sha. Kai. Jin. Retsu.”
Over and over and over again, his energy rushed up to meet the gaping wound in his brother’s back. Leo continued the chant, and only when Donnie’s breathing grew deeper, only when the bleeding slowed, only when he felt the wound stitch itself back together, did he stop. He lurched back, gasping for breath. The world was spinning around him, and he took a moment to breathe.
Mikey and Raph shouted, and Leo knew what he had to do. He dragged Donnie off to the side of the room, out of reach from the Turducken. With one last glance at his second-youngest brother, he turned back to the mutant, eyes white.
His head no longer pounded, adrenaline coursing through him as he lunged. His katanas dug deep into the side of the Turducken. The mutant screeched, and Raph, who had dislodged his sai from its beak, fell to the ground, rolling to soften the blow.
Mikey jumped on its other side, but mid-jump, the Turducken snapped its head to the side, hitting Mikey. Mikey collided with the wall with a hard thud, and he fell to the floor.
“Leo, Mikey’s down!” Raph screamed, running over to his brother. Leo grunted, digging his katanas a little deeper into the Turducken’s side.
“We need to get it back on the ground!” he yelled. Suddenly he ripped his katanas out of the Turducken and pushed off its neck, lunging at a wing. As he fell to the ground, he extended his katana and dug it down the inside of the large, spiny wing.
He landed, and a line of blood fell in front of him from the Turducken’s wing. Raph’s eyes were white, and he screamed as he sprinted up to the mutant, leaping. He kicked off its neck and dragged his two sais down the other wing. He cried out as his arms stretched above him.
Raph rolled as soon as he hit the ground, just narrowly avoiding the Turducken’s large frame as it fell to the ground. It was screeching in pain, trying and failing to get back in the air.
“Let’s finish this,” Leo growled.
Before he ran at the mutant, Leo glanced over to where his brother stood. Raph was gasping for breath, grabbing his chest.
“I—I can’t—”
Raph clawed at his chest and screamed.
“Raph!”
Leo was at his brother’s side in an instant, pulling him away from the frantic Turducken.
“What—”
“He’s ripping it open, Leo, he’s ripping it open—”
And suddenly Leo understood. But before he could say anything, heat seared at their backs. Leo tackled Raph to the ground, but Raph’s robes were already on fire, and Raph was still screaming, and Leo was frozen, looking at his brother who was burning —
A shadow fell over them—the Turducken’s tail. Leo ducked in time, but Raph didn’t. He was thrown to the side, sliding against the stone floor. The impact was enough to throw Raph’s robes off of him. They burned in a pile next to Raph.
Leo looked at his last fallen brother and snarled, turning back to the mutant. Suddenly his brothers weren’t passed out, but dead. Suddenly he wasn’t miles under a wizarding school, but on a New York rooftop.
And suddenly, the Turducken wasn’t standing in front of him. Oroku Saki was. The Shredder.
A monster.
A familiar laughter echoed throughout the chamber—or in Leo’s head. He couldn’t tell the difference, but he snarled nonetheless.
“Is this what you’ve come to?”
The Shredder’s voice was a knife to his gut.
“Fighting a deranged mutant wearing the body of a child.” Another laugh. “You will never be strong enough to defeat me.”
Leo ran forward, blocking out the voice. Memory and reality merged into one until he couldn’t tell which was which. All he knew was the slight pain in his knee as he jumped, the cool slice of his katana, the feel of a head finally, finally being severed from a body.
When he landed, he was in a stone chamber beneath the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. There was blood on his katana, but it wasn’t his own, nor was it the Shredder’s—it was the Turducken’s.
Behind him, a massive body lay dead. The lifeless eyes of the Turducken stared at him, connected to a head that was three feet away from its neck.
Leo sucked in a breath, falling to his knees as he struggled to breathe. The adrenaline began to wear off, and he flinched at the sudden pain in his arm. But he couldn’t think about that now. His brothers needed him.
He made to push himself up, but he fell back to his knees. He was still gasping for breath, so he allowed himself a moment more before he crawled over to Raph.
Raph groaned, opening his eyes. “Leo?” he asked coarsely. “What—what happened?”
He coughed as he pushed himself up, taking in the dead Turducken. His eyes widened slightly, but he nodded slightly to himself. Suddenly, Raph’s face fell.
“Leo—I’m so sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have—”
Leo cut him off by placing a hand on Raph’s shoulder. “How are you feeling?” he asked.
Raph laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Like someone poured gasoline on my chest and lit a match.”
They were silent for a moment before they heard a sound come from Mikey. They both rushed over to him—well, as much as they could with their injuries.
“Mikey!” Raph said. “You okay?”
Mikey groaned, holding his head. “Anybody get the number of that bus?”
Leo chuckled, giving Mikey a quick side-hug with his good arm. Mikey returned it, though his movements were slow.
“How’s Dee?”
Mikey’s question cast them all into silence. Leo turned his head to see his tallest brother still propped against the stone wall on the side of the room. Leo rushed over to him, letting out a sigh of relief at the pulse in Donnie’s wrist.
“How did Snape—or whoever’s going after the Stone—how did they get past the Turducken?” Mikey wondered.
Raph pushed himself up and walked over to the body in the middle of the chamber. After a moment he called, “There aren’t any cuts or scratches on this thing that we didn’t cause.” He paused. “He must have used some powerful magic, enough to stun it long enough for him to get through the door.”
Leo’s eyes widened. “The others!” he said suddenly. “We have to make sure they’re okay.” He made to get up, but hesitated, looking back at Donnie.
“You two go ahead,” Mikey said. “I’ll stay with Dee and get you guys if anything’s wrong.”
Leo gave Mikey a smile before joining up with Raph. As one they pushed through the door.
“Guys!” Hermione called. She was crouched over something on the other side of the chamber. “Are you alright?”
“Define ‘alright’,” Raph said as they hurried over to her. When they got closer, they saw that she was crouched over—
“Ron!” Raph said. They reached Hermione and knelt by Ron, who was out cold. “What happened?”
Hermione sighed. “He sacrificed himself,” she said. “Like an idiot.”
“Yeah, I got one of those,” Raph murmured.
“Sacrificed himself?” Leo said sharply. “How?”
Hermione gestured vaguely around her. “He gave up his place as a knight so I could put the king in checkmate,” she said.
Leo’s brows furrowed. None of that sentence made sense. But then he looked around the room—and gasped.
They were standing on a giant chessboard. Destroyed chess pieces littered the room, and next to Leo, Raph flinched. Leo vaguely remembered Raph telling Donnie about Wizard’s Chess, and how the pieces were merciless when it came to taking the spot of another piece. And if Ron had been on one of those pieces, or been the piece itself…
“Where are Michelangelo and Donatello?” Hermione said, pulling Leo out of his thoughts.
“Back in that room,” Leo said. “Where’s Harry?”
Hermione bit her lip. “He’s gone on without us,” she said. “I—there were potions, and so I let myself go back here through the fire, but Harry—he had to go through to the next door.” Her eyes glazed over. “I’m not sure if—”
The door slammed open suddenly, and they all whirled as a horde of teachers barged in: Dumbledore, McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout, and—
Snape? Leo thought. But then—
Mikey came in after them.
“I tried to explain—” he started, but fell silent when Snape rounded on him.
Dumbledore, meanwhile, was looking at Leo and Raph, strangely calm. “In the room behind me are wizards from the Ministry of Magic,” he said. “They called me to give them a debriefing on what they thought was a Grimando, but according to your brother here, it’s referred to as something else entirely.”
His eyes seemed to bore into them, and Raph cleared his throat. “Yes, um, well, it—it’s called a Turducken,” he said.
“And how do you know this?” Snape demanded.
“Well—”
“Professor, with all due respect, I think we should be worrying about Harry first,” Leo said, turning to Dumbledore and effectively cutting his brother off. “I—he’s with someone who’s trying to steal the Stone. And Donnie—” Had Mikey left Donnie in the other room? “Well, Donnie needs to see Madame Pomfrey. Now.”
Professor McGonagall glared at him from over Dumbledore’s shoulder. Leo hadn’t meant to sound so demanding, but it had been a long day, and he was exhausted. Luckily for him, Ron groaned, sitting up and grabbing his head. Everyone’s attention turned to him for a moment, and all was silent until Dumbledore spoke.
“Your brother is on his way to the hospital wing now,” he said to Leo. Leo and Raph’s eyes widened. “And you five should be, as well,” Dumbledore added, turning to Hermione, Ron, and Mikey. “I suppose we can discuss this later on.”
“Sir—”
“Professor Snape, would you be so kind as to help these young students to Madam Pomfrey’s wing? Professor Flitwick, you can join them, if you please. Professors McGonagall and Sprout are going to accompany me to fetch young Potter in a moment.”
Flitwick ushered them out of the room, and Snape followed silently after. They passed by the body of the Turducken. Wizards were crowded around it, and magical, hovering quills jotted down notes in the air as they made their observations.
They were all silent, too distracted to concentrate much on their surroundings. If it wasn’t Snape, then who—
Mikey gasped suddenly. “Quirrell,” he said.
Hermione’s gaze shot to him. “How so?” she asked.
Mikey shrugged. “It just makes sense.”
Before Leo could work out the pieces, Professor Flitwick shushed them. They all exchanged guilty looks. How many rules had they broken? Scratch that, how many wizard laws had they broken? Leo’s mind raced, turning over the possibilities. His breath quickened as one particularly unpleasant thought emerged. If they had killed the Turducken back at the farmhouse—
And the Turducken showed up here—
Then that means—
The Shredder.
Leo closed his eyes against the memories and thoughts that surged, but his heart still beat furiously in his chest. If the Shredder was back—which, thank goodness, they’d still seen no sign of—then they needed to train and grow as strong as they could before they had to face him. And they couldn’t do that if they were stuck at some dingy old London apartment for the rest of their lives here. Leo supposed they could maybe escape the Shredder by going to wizard prison—whatever that was, though Leo assumed it wasn’t fun—but if—and it was a big if—if the Shredder was back, then he would find them.
He always did.
Leo had been thinking so much he didn’t realize it when they stepped into the infirmary. Madam Pomfrey nearly shrieked at the sight of them, and Leo supposed that was to be expected. Raph was covered in burns from the Turducken, and Donnie’s blood was splattered against Leo’s robes and Mikey’s arms. All of them were covered in scratches and bruises, and now that the adrenaline was nearly completely gone, Leo’s head pounded. Madam Pomfrey shooed Flitwick and Snape out of the hospital wing and ushered them each to separate beds. Leo was relieved to see that Donnie was already sleeping soundly in one of the beds at the end of the row. He took the bed next to Donnie. As his head hit the pillow, sleep rushed up to greet him.