4

Don

It had been a boring couple of days tailing Desdamona Stryfe. A frustrating few days away from my notes and my work. It was delicate stuff, and I was glad I hadn't left any of it out when Leo called me away. Recombinant DNA was tricky stuff to mess with.

But that's where my hope was, and I couldn't afford to give it up. I couldn't afford the wasted time either. The breakthrough I was hoping to accomplish went far beyond anything anyone on Earth had ever achieved, and for the first time ever it would be for something I wanted, something I really wanted, more than for scientific curiosity or technical need.

The day of the lecture came as a welcome relief. We'd finish guarding the woman and then we'd be all done and I could get back to my lab and work on the cure. I stepped across the high beams of the lecture hall, crouching there with my gun. I signaled to Raph, who was now down below on the west end of the hall behind a group of unused podiums that have been pushed to the side. Then I signaled to Leo, who was up on the east end of the hall, concealed within the shadows. The lights were off, and Stryfe was fiddling with a laptop. She was intending to do a Powerpoint presentation, which somehow struck me as rather funny. Here's the Antichrist guys! I have it all in Powerpoint so it must be true!

So far nothing seemed out of order. People were filing in, and nobody seemed to be an assassin.

Then I spotted someone else crouched in the scaffolding with me.

Someone I recognized.

I should have signaled the other two, but instead I launched myself against the intervening distance and put my gun directly in Casey Jones' face. "Fancy meeting you here."

"What are you doing here?" Casey demanded. He had a sniper rifle.

"Protecting the Professor," I said, smiling. I started to increase the pressure on the trigger. This was too good, too easy. Casey, who was an admitted flaw in my plans, the rival for April's affections, was here. We already knew he worked for the Antichrist. If I shot him protecting the professor, right in his smug, bluff, moron face, who could blame me? Even with all that lecturing about my gun? And the fact that he had been sent to kill the professor was written all over his face. His stupid. Punk. Face.

But I didn't pull the trigger, and some resolve hardened in his eyes as well. He raised the rifle as if he were going to try to shoot me – then he flipped it and sent the butt straight towards my face.

Things were happening all at once then. I snapped my head back and Casey grabbed my gun wrist, slamming it into the scaffolding. The gun fell and went off when it hit the floor. People started screaming and fleeing, and someone cried out as if they'd been hit. Hoping he wasn't dead, I nevertheless flipped Casey up and over my head. He went sailing, fell, and caught himself on another part of scaffolding. Then he flipped himself up again, even as I got to my feet.

"Don!" Leo was shouting into the radio. "Don, what's going on?"

I didn't bother answering. "Assassin," I snarled at him.

"She's an enemy of peace, Don," Casey growled. "I'm doing this for the good of the world!" He tried to nail me with punches with every word, as if a good blow to the head would make it all clear. I blocked each shot, then kicked him as hard as I could. He sailed into the opposite wall, then fell down onto a table, which collapsed under him and broke his fall. I flipped out of the scaffolding and landed next to him. He rolled away and saw my brothers running to catch up, drawing their weapons. Raphael stopped short when he saw who I was fighting.

"What the shell!" Raph demanded. I couldn't think of anything stupider than his way of turning swear words into turtle metaphors so he could try to be a good choir boy and clean up his language, but there it was. "Casey?"

Casey backed away a few steps. He was dressed in a suit now, which made him look a lot more fearsome than his hockey mask get up ever had. Stryfe had already left. The lecture hall was in shambles now. He pulled out a side-arm and Leo drew his sword, also looking a little stunned. I lept for him, but he turned, shot the window, and barreled through it. We were on the first floor, and his motorcycle was right outside. All three of us tried to pursue, but he was off in a dust cloud before we'd even gotten to the window.

The silence stretched between us until the blare of sirens snapped us all back to reality.

"Your gun nearly killed an innocent," Leo growled at me as we barreled right out of the same window and went taking off.

"Fine, I'll stop using it," I snapped. "As I didn't manage to shoot the assassin anyway."

"The assassin? That was our friend!" Raph was on the other side of me, putting in his two cents. I liked it better when he and Leo were fighting all the time. With them putting up a constant united front they were growing utterly insufferable.

"He had a sniper rifle aimed right at our charge's head," I shot back. "So from where I'm standing, that makes him an assassin. Face it, Raph, your buddy is now working for your enemy. I did the job. The woman's safe isn't she? Now can we please go back home? I've wasted enough time on this stupidity!"

A few more twists and turns took us to our hidden van, and Leo slid into the driver's seat. "Well Donnie," he pointed out at last, "At the very least you have to admit the fact that there was an attempt on her life sort of proves our point. If Nicolae Carpathia isn't the Antichrist, then what does she have to fear from some professor saying he is? She'd be risking her career with such silly talk normally."

"Oh, so this goes from a weapon's lecture to a God talk!" I was fuming now. I slammed into shotgun and buckled my seatbelt, then crossed my arms. Maybe if I crossed them hard enough I could shut everyone up! "Let me tell you something, Leo. I don't give a damn about God. I don't believe in God. And if I did believe in God, not only is He the guy that took my brother and father away, but he's also the guy that made sure we lived in exile and hiding our whole lives. He's the one that's made it hard on us. I've prayed before and He never answered my prayer. He never gave me the one thing I want more than anything else in all the world. And he took away two of the things that make the world worth living in. So honestly? If this Carpathia guy is the enemy of God, I have to admit I'd be tempted into signing up myself! I'm doing this because he's your enemy and because you're family and because I love you both, but I want you both to get off this subject!"

I meant every word I said. They seemed to be able to tell, because they went silent for the ride home. Which was fine by me. The elusive formula that had been chasing itself around my brain for days was finally starting to snap into place in my mind. God might not have been willing to secure me the one thing I wanted more than anything else…but if I was right, I'd soon be helping myself without him.

Author's Notes: Thanks again to all my faithful reviewers! I went back and fixed the tense change in Chapter 1 that got pointed out to me. I didn't see one in 2 though I do see a typo I need to go fix in 3. Don't worry folks, April is around and yes, you'll be seeing her, those who asked. Watching the TMNT movie tonight inspired me to work on this a bit more!