The Master made noises almost all the time. Spoke his words though it couldn't understand or respond. Sometimes the words were louder, sometimes they were just a dull hum.

Sometimes it almost understood. Sometimes the Master spoke so loudly and so intently that sound became urging, instinct as much as one of its own instincts.

Go.

Eat, swim, hide, sleep. Those instincts it understood. They had guided it its too-long life.

Go was a different instinct. Go was the Master, but one of the few urgings it could understand and obey.

Go came then, urgent and loud. Go. Go now.

It went.

The Master spoke more words, louder than ever before, excited and urgent. It didn't understand those, but it understood go.

Somewhere in what mind it possessed, in what memory it could draw upon, it wondered if maybe it wasn't Time.


"Oh, look who's being a wimp."

Raph rolled his eyes, dropping to sit on the bank close to Mike and Leo. "Wimp my ass."

"Come on, then. Get your butt in the water before Leo decides to not be fun anymore."

"I'm right here, Mikey."

"What? You know you're not fun. It's not like it's a secret."

Leo opted to ignore him. He floated on his back, sighing happily. The sun was setting, but still hot. The water was warm near the top, and the little brushes and curious bumps of the creatures in the river were comforting.

Life here. Not like the city, where everything was covered and paved and toxic. Concrete jungles weren't his kind of jungles. He wanted to open his eyes and look out on living things.

There was a spirit in everything. Splinter had taught them that once. A soul to every blade of grass and every insect that crawled on those blades.

Some didn't believe it. Some thought that souls belonged to humans. But there he and his brothers were, feeling and thinking. No one could tell Leo they didn't have souls, and no one would ever convince him that a toxic spill had formed those souls in them. They were born with their souls, and the toxic waste did nothing but give them a way to express it.

The same kinds of souls were in everything. The spiders, the leeches, the worms. The grass. The trees.

Leo thrived there. Or so it felt to him. He felt the spirit of everything.

It made him want to start their training. To get his brothers as in tune with the world as he was. Splinter told him he was advanced enough in his lessons to teach them to the others, and Leo hoped he was right.

But he floated and breathed and let his brothers have their evening off. They would take his lessons as work, until they were far enough along to enjoy them. It was best to let them approach the first lesson happy and rested.

"--to just push him in, Donnie!"

Leo blinked open eyes he realized were closed. He straightened, treading the water with minimal, instinctive movements.

Don was standing there, last to come down from the house. He was behind Raph, a smile on his face.

Mike was splashing loudly as he moved through the water towards the bank. "Come on, do it!"

Raph was glowering by then, and Leo wondered what he had missed.

"Donnie isn't gonna push me anywhere. Donnie doesn't have a death wish like his brother."

"Raph, you big wuss. Get your ass in here and swim!"

Don sat down beside Raph, spoke to him quietly.

Raph's glower faded to a more solemn frown.

"Oh, not you too!" Mike flopped back suddenly, sending a tidal wave back to disturb Leo's more graceful float.

"Just stop it, Mikey." Leo moved towards his brother, mentally surrendering the day to three overactive brothers who just spent hours in the back of a van.

Mike ignored him. "Donnie, get in here! We're frigging turtles, guys, we love this crap!"

Leo glanced at Don and Raph. He raised his eyebrows.

They both watched him silently. Raph's mouth was spreading into a slow smile.

Leo obeyed the unspoken wish. Treading so fluidly that Mike never heard him coming, he slipped under the water, compacted his muscles, and pushed out hard. Catching Mike around the middle of his shell he pulled hard, driving Mike under the water.

He surfaced to acknowledge the claps and whistles from the bank. He bowed his head modestly.

But Mike recovered fast, and when hands wrapped around his ankle he went under.


Go.

Go.

It didn't need the Master's guiding. It knew. It knew by then like a rush of warm, fresh food, or like escaping a predator. That hum, that life, that excitement.

The taste was there.

Finally.

It moved on its own then, knowing the hunt and the feed better than its Master.

Large forms moving violently, but it wasn't alarmed. It didn't want to go and hide. It knew it could never kill these creatures, but it knew they were full of food. It knew they held the taste.

Go! Feed!

But it didn't. It had its senses, and it knew that these creatures were close. Very close, but not the one. Not what it remembered.

Not exactly.

It went past them, shivering through the water faster than it had ever moved before. There was a glory in it that it didn't recognize but that drove it to push itself.

A third form, large, predator, too big, slipped into the water. Close again. So close, but not right.

Feed! Now!

It ignored its Master, thought the sounds were loud enough to hurt. It followed where the third had come in, and there.

There.

Just a skim at the top of the water. Just a piece of the creature, trailing close to the surface.

Eat!

It obeyed.

It found its target and fastened on, and glory came into it when the taste it knew and craved filled it. Power. Food, but more.

Something in it shifted. The noise, the Master, was silenced.

Gone.

It realized after only a moment. It was alone. The Master had abandoned it, had used it to open the veins of the green creature so Master could travel into it instead.

The Master had kept it alive through long years. The Master drove its soul to survive when its body was old and broken and rotting.

And with the Master gone, surviving was no longer possible.

Death came to it, so fast and so final that it died feeling only the victory of tasting what it had so long craved.


"Jesus Christ!"

His three brothers, cheerfully moving through the water, sending splashes at each other, all heard his shout and looked over.

Raph had skirted away from the bank, his foot in the air. "You've got to be fucking kidding me!"

Leo's smile vanished. "What? Raph, quiet down."

"Quiet down?" Mike laughed even as they all started for shore. "Who's gonna hear him?"

Leo didn't answer. His eyes were locked on Raph, on the foot he held out. There was something on him, something small and thin and…

"Oh my God." Don's voice beside him as they slogged up onto the bank.

Leo dropped on his knees. "Raph, hold still!"

"Get the fucking thing off!"

"Wait." Don stopped Leo as he reached for it.

They watched as the leech, spiny and shriveled, unstuck bit by bit until it simply fell to the ground.

Leo had no doubt it was dead.

Mike bent to look at it. "Yech. This is one ugly little sucker."

The moment it was off Raph shot to his feet, backing away. His face tinged with grey. "Jesus Christ."

Mike laughed. "Raph, it's just a…." He trailed off and sat up suddenly. The amusement was gone from his face.

Leo swallowed, suddenly realizing why Raph had been so sedate, and so hesitant to go in the water.

He looked down at the leech. There could be no doubting it was dead. The thing looked like it had been dead for weeks. This leech wouldn't be up and walking. It wouldn't return to suck Raph dry. Not this time.

He reached out, his hand a fist, and crushed the lifeless body into slime. Just in case.

He leaned over to rinse his hand in the water, and when he looked back Mike and Don were both standing by Raph. Raph's hands were on his arms as if he were cold. He was staring at the remains of the leech, breathing hard.

Raph frightened was prone to lash out and hit whatever was closest, and Don and Mike both knew that enough to stay a step ahead and not try to touch him.

"Hey, man, it's dead. It's okay." Mike's voice was low.

Don took over, more naturally soothing than Mike. "It's dead and you're fine. You're fine, Raph. It's not the same one."

Raph's breathing was starting to slow. His mouth pinched. "Of course it's not the same one. Thing would've died years ago. It's still a pretty fucking sick coincidence."

That was why he didn't want to go into the water. Damn it. How could Leo have just forgotten it? Too many other events, he figured with a frown, regarding the ruins of the leech and the water it had come from. At the time watching Raph lose himself bit by bit, stop speaking, lose muscle, until he was eventually back to the small petshop turtle they all once were had been huge. Jarring. Terrifying.

But since then there had been other terrors and other huge events, and this one had gotten lost in Leo's mind. Somehow even coming to the house again he hadn't remembered.

Don remembered, Leo realised. That was why he sat with Raph at first and didn't listen to Mikey.

Raph?

Leo sighed. Not much chance Raph would ever forget.

He pushed to his feet with a sigh.

Raph was still grey, but the fright was leaving his face. Fear never could sit on Raph for too long. "I mean, seriously. What the hell? How's it gonna go after my foot when you three and your fat butts were actually in the damned water?"

Leo moved to them. Raph would play it off, but Mike looked shaken by the memory, and Leo knew fun time was over.

He clapped Don on the shoulder. "Okay, guys. Maybe it's time to get inside."


He was free.

After ages trapped in the mindless prison of a shriveling animal, the Old Man was suddenly surrounded by thought. Intelligence. Comprehension. Power and strength, and when he spoke, he had no doubt this creature would listen and understand.

The thoughts of this mutant buzzed and swirled around him, nonstop. Loud and scattered, as all thoughts were. Illogical, confused. Intelligent, but not intelligent enough to detect him there.

This creature would give in to him.

The Old Man's power had waned in his leech prison. His anger had not.

These creatures had brought about his ruin. These four mutants had found him, had bested his pet, had brought the traitor Abanak to his banks. They had denied his wisdom, doubted his generous gifts. But they themselves hadn't defeated him.

No. The rat.

The rat was who he really wanted. Who he would see crushed to the ground. The rat and his tricks had deformed the Old Man, cut him off from his water, his atoms and quarks. The rat would pay, and pay hard.

He would take his time. Learn as his power returned what influence he could have on this beast he was inside of. Learn how to exert his influence. Learn how to destroy the rat, father to these mutants.

He would have his revenge.