Author Notes:

So I recently watched the first few early-released episodes for the new series, and I have to say that, while there are some things that threw me off, I'm looking forward to seeing where they go with this. It was especially strange seeing Leo act so flippantly, and I decided to see if I couldn't experiment with this new personality of his.

I've tried to keep with what lore has been established so far, but, obviously, this is still extremely early in the series, the show hadn't even been released at the the time of this writing, so there's a lot of guesswork.

Chapter 1: Uncanny Valley

The first conscious thought that flittered through Leo's head was "Ow."

Oof, he hurt. His head hurt, his shell hurt, everything hurt. What bus had run him over, and had Raph beaten the driver up yet? What had happened? Where was he?

He lay there, stubbornly on the edge of consciousness, pondering the darkness and pain. Hm. Time to experiment. He wiggled his fingers slightly. Well, they moved. Good. Now for the toes... Ah. Success. Toe wigglage activated! Yay!

He didn't seem to be tied up or restrained in any way, and in fact seemed to be fairly comfortable, despite the soreness, so he PROBABLY wasn't captured or a prisoner. It was quiet and peaceful, which probably meant his brothers weren't immediately nearby either. That was troubling. If he had been injured somehow, he would expect Mikey to be petting his face while singing his favorite commercial jingles softly, Donnie playing the 'If I poke him here, will it have an effect?' game, and Raph wondering if he'd wake up faster if they shook him more.

Let's see here... What was the last thing he remembered...?

Laying there motionless with his eyes still closed, Leo tried to ignore the headache and think back.

He and his brothers had been searching for a magical artifact, some Eye of the Snake God or something. Leo wasn't sure what it did, exactly, but Baron Draxum was searching for it, so they had decided they had better find it first. It turned out this Eye thing had been in a cavern deep underground, inside an old ruined temple that had somehow found its way there by some forgotten civilization.

Oh, wait. Ha! That's right. Now he remembered. The Eye of the Snake God had been stuck behind a broken wall they hadn't been able to get past, and Donnie had wanted to use explosives to get to it. Fortunately, Leo had been able to talk them into pushing that back to 'Plan B', and instead went with 'Plan Let's Not Collapse A Cave On Top of Us'. Mikey had a big pack of bubblegum, and they chewed it up, stuck a big wad to the end of Donnie's staff, and stuck it through a crack to snag the tiny magic gem on the sticky pink mass. Donnie was horrified. It was great!

And then... then they had... oh yeah! Draxum showed up with a bunch of the oragami Foot, and they had fought. They were doing pretty well, actually, and he had pulled off some pretty cool moves. Until...

The cave in!

Leo began to remember!

There had been an explosion, though whether it had been Donnie or one of the Foot, he hadn't seen. But the cavern began to shake and big boulders began falling from the ceiling. He and his brothers had been running for the tunnel to try and escape, but he had been tackled by some of the paper Foot and knocked back. A giant stone pillar began to topple over and was about to crush him! He didn't have time to get out of the way, so, in desperation, he had grabbed his Ōdachi sword and quickly slashed a portal underneath himself, falling into it just before the rock slammed down on top of him.

But he hadn't been able to control where the exit point was, and he had unexpectedly found himself popping out in another gigantic cavern, a different cavern then the one with the ruined temple. He had noticed that this particular cavern had a ceiling covered in glowing mushrooms, lighting it up to almost daylight conditions, and seemed to be filled with forests and strange plants. Of course, he had this good of a view of the cavern because, unfortunately, the exit point of his portal had been near the ceiling, and so while he was admiring this beautiful, underground paradise, he also found himself plummeting through the air, screaming and flailing as he hurtled towards the green carpeted ground far below.

Wait. Not all green. Was that a swimming pool underneath him? No, that didn't make any sense. Wait... wait, wait. It was a basket! A huge swimming pool-sized woven basket! And it was filled almost to the brim with what looked like blue flowers that seemed to be growing abundantly in the fields all around them. There had to be thousands of flowers tossed in there.

Huh. What was that all about?

And then he had no time left to ponder the strange sight as he crashed into the unreasonably giant flower basket, sending flowers flying everywhere. Thankfully, they had cushioned his fall enough that he wasn't a splat on the cavern floor. But then there was a creak, and, brushing flowers off of his face, he had looked up to see that there was a wooden crane of some sort sitting on the edge of this basket structure, and it was now tipping over and falling right on top of...

Oh. Right. That's what happened.

Huh.

Well, with that mystery solved, now he just needed to figure where he was. Currently, there still was a disturbing lack of activity around him. It had to be obvious that he was awake now, wasn't it? It felt like somebody had tended his injuries. Who were they? Why were they in this cavern? And why all the flowers?

Leo finally decided the best course of action was to finish waking up, figure out who rescued him, and maybe apologize for ruining what had to be one of the largest flower arrangements in history.

His eyes blinked open, and he immediately winced at the light from the mushrooms above. He... was outside? Or whatever passed for outside in this cavern? He looked to his left, and then his right. He was laying back on his shell across some sort of raised wooden platform, up several feet off the ground. Blue flowers were everywhere around him, tucked in and arranged neatly around his form. In fact, he noticed that even the blanket covering him was actually a bunch of flowers woven together.

You know, this might be one of the weirder experiences in his life.

He wasn't going to end up sacrificed to anything, was he? Ugh. Where was his sword?

Leo winced a little, flowers sliding off as he propped himself up on his elbows, then he froze, his face going blank.

On the ground at the foot of the platform he was laying on, quietly knelt dozens of humanoid shaped turtles. Mutant turtles.

Mutant turtles with two red vertical stripes on their faces and blue bandannas tied around their heads.

Each one looked identical to the other.

Each one looked identical to HIM!

He reached back, rubbing the back of his aching head and wondering just how hard he hit it.

There had to be almost fifty perfect versions of himself out there, kneeling there in the grass and watching him silently with gleeful, expectant smiles on their faces.

So... he was laying on some sort of platform, surrounded by a crowd of creepy, smiling, so far silent clones of himself... That was a thing...

DEFINITELY ONE OF THE WEIRDER EXPERIENCES IN HIS LIFE!

This... they were just sitting there, staring at him! How long had they been sitting there? Were they watching him while he was unconscious?!

He sat there, wide eyed and staring right back at them. What did one even say in a situation like this?!

"Uh, hi? Good looking crowd this evening, I see." he finally nervously joked.

There was movement, and he looked over to see one of the Not-Actually-Leo standing up beside the foot of the platform and spread his arms joyously as he turned to the kneeling crowd. What stood there looked like exactly him, from the two toes and three fingers, to the blue markings on his shell, but the voice that came out to address the crowd startled Leo by its unexpectedness. It was high pitched and cute, like Mickey Mouse had just inhaled a bunch of helium.

"The King has awoken! Rejoice!"

"Yay!" Dozens of high pitched, Alvin and the Chipmunks style voice cried out joyfully, which honestly made things even more disconcerting and disturbing then they already had been.

He watched warily as the Leos around him rejoiced.

Oh, great. He somehow accidentally became the leader of a cult. Dad was going to be so disappointed in him. He had gotten this lecture already! There had been a rolled-up newspaper and everything! 'Blue! No!' he distinctly remembered hearing as he was swatted on the snout. 'No forming cults! Bad!'

"Uh... Yup. Yay." he agreed as he chuckled nervously, looking around, then muttered under his breath, "Please don't sacrifice me."

"Your Highness," his apparently new High Priest clone turned to him, still talking in chipmunk voice. "This is indeed a great and joyous day for us all! Long have we awaiting your coming! Though the years have been long, and our troubles great, never did we give up hope! Always, ever faithful and patient, we looked to the sky and gathered the blue flowers for you! And here you are at last to lead us!"

Leo blinked at him, inwardly scrambling to try and figure out this situation. Okay, if Ghostbusters had taught him anything, then if somebody asks you if you're a god, then you say YES, Ray! He cleared his throat. "Uh... Cool. Thanks?"

High Priest Leo-clone paused, then looked uncertain. "Are... are you alright? I believe you look uncomfortable." He turned around to look at the nearest fellow Leo-clone. "Is it my imagination, or does he look uncomfortable?"

"He looks uncomfortable." Acolyte Leo-clone agreed in that squeaky voice.

"But... why?" High Priest Leo-clone looked back towards Real Leo, perplexed and concerned. "We have done all we can to make you comfortable!"

"Our voices!" another Leo-clone, one that Leo decided to think of as 'Royal Advisor Leo', because hey, he apparently was king, darnit, and he could make such decisions. "Our voices are not familiar to him!"

"Oh! That is true!" Royal Scribe Leo-clone nodded in sage agreement.

"Hm." High Priest Leo-clone tapped his chin worriedly. "What is to be done about such a thing though?"

"What if..." Tax Accountant Leo-clone spoke up thoughtfully, "What if we worked in pairs of two? With one doing the voice?"

"Oh! That is brilliant!" High Priest Leo-clone clapped his hands in delight. "That should work! Let's go!"

Leo yelped, scrambling back and watching with wide eyes as half of the Leo-clones disappeared into a bright light, then merged and disappeared into the Leo-clone next to them.

Well, okay! Half of his new royal court just apparently absorbed the other half! That was a thing that could happen?

"There we go." And Leo felt creeped out goosebumps rise up on his arm as High-Priest Leo-clone, having just merged with Librarian Leo-clone, no longer sounded like he just inhaled a couple of party balloons, but instead now spoke in an eerily familiar voice. His own voice.

The now-perfect copy sounded pleased with himself as he turned. "Your highness, is this better?"

Leo gave a noncommittal whimper, sitting stiffly with his fists clenched at his hips, trying not to look freaked out but failing badly.

Lady-in-waiting Leo-clone frowned, then wrung his hands and looked around, distressed. "Oh no. He's worse!"

"Please, Your Majesty, tell us how we might put you at ease?" Acolyte Leo-clone begged of him, also now in his voice. "We wish only for your happiness and comfort!"

Leo took a deep, shaky breath, noticed and brushed a few blue flowers off of his thigh, slowly exhaled, then cleared his throat. "How about we start with WHY DO YOU ALL LOOK LIKE ME?!" His voice cracked as his panic broke through. He gestured towards them in agitation. "I mean, they say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but this is taking it too far!"

High Priest Leo-clone looked around at the rest of the royal court of Leo-clones, swallowed hard, then sighed and rubbed his arm dejectedly. "We... we had hoped that if we looked familiar to you, that if you saw a face like your own instead of strangers, then you'd feel a stronger desire to protect us." he admitted, hanging his head.

"Well, if you want to provoke a protective instinct in somebody, you're going about it all wrong. Right now, you're hitting the 'Uncanny Valley' zone. Hard." Leo crossed his arms, huffing. "Try something more 'Cute and Innocent' like, I dunno, fluffy kittens or something. Nobody wants a fluffy kitten to get hurt!"

There was a pause as all the Leo-clones looked at one another, then they all closed their eyes. Leo jumped as there were several pops of light all around him, and then suddenly he was surrounded by adorable fluffy kittens instead of creepy clones of himself. All the ones who disappeared earlier to change the voice of the Leo-clones were back as well, bringing the royal court back to full capacity, and they even weren't all exact replicas of each other this time. Apparently they must have had a greater knowledge of different cat breeds and colors then mutant turtle variations. Which, of course, made sense. There were a lot more cats out in the world then mutant turtles.

"Is this better then?" High Priest Kitten stood up on his hind legs to better peer up at him on the platform, now a fluffy grey tabby and once again speaking in the high-pitched helium voice.

Leo blinked at him, frowned, held up a finger and started to say something, paused again, then finally decided to just roll with it. "Ohmahgosh! You're freaking adorable!" He plopped down on his plastron and peered over the platform edge to see better. Curious and tempted by the fluffy fur, he reached down to poke the ball of fluff, but blinked in surprise when his hand just passed through the kitten's head as if there were nothing there but air.

He lifted up his hand and stared at it, wiggling the fingers that had just passed through what looked like a solid kitten. Oh. Great. Now his cult was made up of ghosts?!

"Oh! My apologies, Your Majesty!" High Priest Ghost-Kitten sputtered. "I-I didn't realized you'd actually try to... Um... this... this is just an illusion."

Leo peered over the edge of the platform again and narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the very-real looking tabby. "What do you really look like, then?"

High Priest Illusionary-kitten sighed, then, in a flash of light, suddenly there was a tiny little fairy, dressed in an outfit of leaves with butterfly wings, no bigger then a bumblebee. "We... we look like this, Your Highness. We're pixies."

Leo studied the little pixie for a moment, then carefully, gently, reached out and poked him.

Okay, he was real.

High Priest Pixie flew up and settled on his outstretched finger, sitting down and letting his wings droop. "I apologize if we messed up our introduction. It truly was our intention to make you feel at ease."

"It's... okay. I'm guessing that you guys were the ones who set up the giant flower pit, so that means your flower obsessions saved my life and everything." Leo looked around at all the kittens now poofing into pixie form, then looked back down at his High Priest, raising a red-striped eyeridge. "So... if I'm understanding this correctly, I'm your king now?"

High Priest Pixie nodded enthusiastically.

"Cool." Leo carefully stood up, still balancing a pixie on one finger. He put his free hand on his hip imperiously. "Then my first decree is that you guys tell me what the heck is going on here!"

His stomach rumbled a little.

"... over a feast!" He amended quickly. "I wish to hear the tale over a feast!"

"Yay!" the pixies all cheered happily. "Cheers for the King!"

It took a depressingly short amount of time to put together a pixie feast. Leo found himself sitting on the ground, surrounded by happily feasting pixies while he stared dejectedly at a plate heaped with blue flowers.

He glanced at his Head Cook Pixie. "I don't suppose you have pizza? Or a hamburger or something?"

Head Cook Pixie looked up from where he was happily munching on his flower. He looked thoughtful for a moment. "If you want, I can make it LOOK like a pizza or hamburger, Your Highness."

"Uh, no. That's okay. Thanks, though." Leo sighed, leaning back. He really need to find his sword and get out of here. Not only was he concerned about his brothers, but he was going to starve to death down here, apparently. But first, pixie business. "So... tell me, why do you want a turtle for a king anyways?" he wondered, picking up a flower and halfheartedly chewing on it.

"Oh! That's a story!" another pixie flew up, one that Leo had mentally designated as the Royal Stablekeeper Pixie earlier, but now decided to amend to the more appropriate title of Royal Historian Pixie. He perched politely on the edge of Leo's shell on his shoulder. He cleared his throat and began.

"You see, many, many, MANY years ago, we once roamed the lands above. It was our home, and we were happy up there. But then, one day, we got trapped down here, and we couldn't figure out how to escape. But there was a pixie among us who was very wise, and had a dream of the future."

"That was me!" Okay, so apparently he now had a Royal Soothsayer Pixie. She was sitting next to the Royal Blacksmith Pixie, and waving wildly at him. He waved back politely, then picked up another flower and decided to see if just eating the flower part and not the stem would make it less bitter.

"The dream foretold that one day, if we offered a flower in prayer, then a great hero, powerful, brave, and strong, would appear and lead us out of this cavern prison and out to paradise up on the surface." Historian Pixie continued.

'A' flower? As in singular? Man, these guys were overachievers. Still, they did save his life by their enthusiasm for flower offerings. Leo tapped his chin with a flower stem thoughtfully as he chewed. "I could probably pull something like that off for you. I need my sword first, though." He swallowed, making a face at the taste. Okay, these flowers weren't going to work out. "You guys haven't seen it, have you? I lost it when I fell."

The pixies looked at one another.

"No, we haven't seen any swords, my King." Acolyte Pixie frowned. "When you fell out of the sky, it startled us so badly that we all dove for cover and hid! We didn't see a sword falling."

"It must have landed in the forest." Tax Accountant Pixie whispered in horror.

All the pixies went silent, shuddering.

"Uh... I take it that's... bad." Leo looked around at them.

"There's a terrible monster that's appeared recently. It roams the woods around us, and hunts us if we wander too close! We dare not go out there, least we be devoured." Head Cook Pixie whimpered, flying up press against his neck and hide behind one of his bandana tails. "A great and giant bird that can magically grow even larger, with the strength of a god, and talons and beak like weapons that can pierce even the most carefully crafted armor! It is horrible and unnatural, with eyes of fire red and skin melting off of its face."

"When it hunts us, it screeching out curses in the language of the demons!" High Priest Pixie added as he hid under Leo's hand, trembling.

"Hm." Leo frowned. That didn't sound good. Hopefully he wasn't getting into something over his head here. He was weaponless!

"That... that is why we were gathering so many flowers, actually." Historian Pixie admitted. "We were getting desperate! If one flower was supposed to summon our new leader and hero, then a bunch of flowers would work even better, right?"

"That was my idea too." Soothsayer Pixie said proudly.

"We wove and wove and finally made the biggest basket in the world!" Historian Pixie explained. "And then we gathered flowers to put in it. Day and night, we gathered flowers and piled them in the basket, never stopping, because eventually it would have to work, right?"

"It took weeks and weeks, but it worked! Just like I knew it would! You came out of the sky and landed among our flowers!" High Priest Pixie hugged Leo's finger joyfully. "Now you'll save us from that monster and lead us out to paradise!"

"Huh. Well... that explains a lot, actually." Leo nodded, then leaned back and sighed as he pondered this strange turn of events. It sounded like he was going to have to face this monster if he was going to find his sword. And his brothers. And his way home.

His stomach growled.

And some food.

Hopefully this wouldn't take too long.