I prefer the iris, the lotus and most of all, the Terra Nostra Rose. (It's brown. My favorite color!)
Ok
*Clears throat*
We are gathered here today to join- Oh wait, wrong ceremony. ^_^'
Well, it's the final chapter and I know before that I claimed I would end on chapter 8 but I just couldn't leave it there after such good feedback. This amazingly is the 50th story I've written on here, ALL are TMNT fan fiction. And I mean, I want to thank so many people for leaving reviews, messaging me, reading, this story and my other stories, checking out my profile, voting in the polls I posted. You all have been amazing, marvelous, spectacular, astounding, wondrous, terrific, glorious, kind, awesome, incredible, thoughtful, helpful, dependable…I'm running out of adjectives...
Heh! ^-^ I think you get the point.
I can't thank everyone enough for standing by with this story I plan to make this last chapter short and either:
1. Unexpectedly Ironic
2. Very sappy
or
3. I'll throw in a big explosion
Ok on to chapter 12, the GRAND FINALE!
Oh yeah, and I don't own TMNT. WAHHHHH!
Leo was by Raph's side in a second, barely noticing the shattered glass that lay around them both, the shards cutting his own skin as he pulled his unconscious younger brother away from the pile of shattered glass. He glanced to the side momentarily to see a broken mirror leaning against the wall, it's broken pieces scattered over the dojo's floor. The mirror, along with others, had long ago been placed in the dojo for solo practices since you really couldn't see if your form was correct when you were alone. Leo shook the useless information from his mind and focused his attention on his red masked brother. He brushed away some of the glass bits from Raph's dark green skin, only to feel blood gushing through his fingers when he lifted Raph's head. When Leo turned it, he wanted to hurl. He'd never seen a head wound so large. A large shard of glass had cut into the back of the red clad turtle's head, slicing his mask so that it hung limply off his face and continued it's slide to the floor when Raph's head was lifted, hitting the small pool of blood with a silent but shocking smack to Leonardo's mind.
He glanced over to where Thade was now sitting against the wall, slightly shaking while Mikey and Don were trying to calm him down.
Leo growled for a quick second, "Forget about him, someone get the first aid kit!"
Mikey, being the youngest, coincidentally made him quite quick to obey orders, so he abandoned talking sense into his eldest brother and raced out of the room to fetch the nearest first aid kit. After having their luck, they had decided to place one or more in every room. He rushed back inside after grabbing the closest one from the underneath the couch and sped to Leo's side, watching anxiously as the blue clad turtle attempted to stop the bleeding.
"Don leave Thade alone, I need your help!" Leo called across the room.
Quite reluctantly, Don left the yellow masked turtle on his own as the cooled headed brothers crowded around their red masked hot headed brother, calling on the youngest turtle to fetch things they needed.
As for the lone, isolated, yellow clad turtle, he could only stare forward as the memory replayed, over and over and over, again.
"Stay away from MY brother!"
Thade narrowed his eyes, what was it about his hotheaded little brother that made his blood boil?
"Listen Raphael," Thade said slowly, "I thought we had this cleared up."
"That was before you attacked Donny!" Raph protested.
"Raphael-"
"Shut up! No one calls me that!"
"It's your name stupid!"
"Oh, so now I'm ignorant huh?"
Thade couldn't explain why he felt the need to always rise to any challenge Raph presented to him but he just wouldn't be made a fool of. Inside of him, something snapped.
You wouldn't have been able to tell that he unsheathed his sword and swung it around to point towards the younger turtle. For time didn't appear to pass during the movement, like the sword had just suddenly appeared in his hand.
"What do you have against me?" Thade hissed as he watched Raph slide out the sais from his belt and take a battle ready stance similar to his own.
"I got a lot against you," Raph said, "First you attacked Leo and Mikey, and now you suddenly attacked Don."
"I didn't have a choice."
"There's always a chance Sunshine!" Raph spat.
Thade growled, "QUIT CALLING ME THAT!"
"What's with you?" Raph whispered harshly as they began circling each other, "I'll pardon the first two since you were being controlled but what in the world possessed you to attack Don?"
"I have my reasons," Thade said with a glare and sneer.
"So you admit it. Now tell me why!"
The second part was yelled with a charge by both the turtles, the two sais sliding across the single large sword. Silver danced along with yellow and red, certain instances reflecting orange shadows in the mirrors surrounding them as the blades slid and crashed together.
Neither let up the assault, Raph drove Thade backwards until he found and opening and, still retaining some control, turned his sai around and sent the pommel into the yellow masked turtle's stomach. Thade caught the attack and doubled over, falling to his knees as Raphael jumped backwards. The yellow clad turtle looked down and saw his knuckles had turned white from gripping the handle of his sword for so long. A sword Raph had even given him. Thade then coughed and couldn't miss the splash of a few small drops of a red liquid on the floor below him. Red, blood…
His heart began to race and his sight went as red as the blood, he glanced up, acknowledge the red clad turtle walking towards him, surrounded by an aura of anger and confusion. Despite humanity standards, there are often times when animalistic vengeances come to one's mind, and consequently, this was one of those times. The eldest turtle shot to his feet and his sword seemed to fly as they met a single, quaint sai. Perhaps Thade saw the other aimed for his head or maybe he just saw the approaching dark green skin. As the small weapon neared, the yellow masked turtle's hand shot out and grabbed Raph's wrist, twisting it to make him drop his weapon. Then, the light green hand clamped on to the other dark green wrist, twisting it like the other and Thade grinning with vigor as the second sai clattered to the ground. He was aware that Raph was saying something, but the eldest's blood was still boiling and he had no control. . He pushed the younger turtle back and then kicked the sais across the room before charging at Raph. He felt an impact, then heard the shattering of glass.
When he reopened his eyes he saw his younger brother across the dojo, laying on his side and blood lots of blood, his already rapidly beating heart began beating faster.
"What have I done?" Thade whispered with a whimper that was poorly and only half heartedly hidden.
Heart…blood….
The memories came back.
T-7653-Heart Failure
"Why bro?" Mikey asked from where he was leaning against the wall outside the dojo, glancing inside at his eldest brother, who was still sitting on the floor of the dojo, his shell pressed against the wall.
The door was wide open allowing Thade to see outside if he wished and allow the others to look in at his shamed form.
"How can you still call me your brother?" Thade mumbled.
"Because you ARE my brother."
"What are doing here Mikey?" a new voice asked while footsteps sounded out as a turtle approached the dojo.
Mikey glanced over and Thade looked outside the dojo to find Donatello standing about a foot from the doorway.
"Leo told me to guard him," Mikey said.
Don shook his head in exasperation, "I need to talk to Thade, would you start moving things? Leo wants everything set up by tonight."
Mikey looked uneasily inside the dojo at Thade, despite everything, the youngest was mostly worried about his oldest brother, "You're not going to fight him like Raph are you?"
Don's eyes shifted, showing disbelief, "Are you crazy? I wouldn't hurt him, he's my brother."
"Ok, I'm just uneasy. How's Raph?"
"He'll be fine, just asleep for a few days until his body can adjust the large blood transfusion he needed. Thade's lab is little bloody now, but I'll clean that up in a bit. Leo and Raph are both unconscious in my lab."
"Kay," Mikey said, walking away a few feet but still staring back uneasily as Don entered the dojo and closed the door.
Don smiled a pathetic smile down at Thade before crossing the room and sitting next to him.
"Want to tell me what happened?"
"I don't know what happened?" Thade whispered.
"How can you not know?"
"I don't understand it, I was talking with Leo and then he left, then the door slammed closed behind him and Raph was there. He said 'Stay away from MY brother."
Don sighed through a smile and smiled in exasperation, "Again? Look Thade I thought you would see it by now but then again you've only been with us for too long, so maybe that's why you don't get it."
"Get what?"
Don smiled humorlessly, "If there is one thing that Raph and Leo have in common, it's that they both protect Mikey and I but their styles of protection and views of protection are different as well. Plainly put, Leo's protective, but Raph is different. He's more than protective."
"What do you mean?"
"Now Leo, he's protective, often overprotective. Raph runs on a whole different philosophy though, he's possessive. I believe it's personality ingrained in them so there's little that can be done about it but still, they're great brothers."
Thade seemed to sweep the conversation from his mind, "I really don't know what happened with Raph, he started yelling, then I yelled back, then we started fighting, then he hit me, then, everything just went red."
"Red?"
Thade spilled everything then, the deal with the Foot, the serum…
"Wait, serum?" Don asked.
The yellow clad turtle nodded and raised his hand to stare down at it where a thin black line was continuing to fade.
"Thade," Don said suddenly, what if it was the serum?"
"What?"
"Well, it could be an side affect Karai slipped into the serum, or even Bishop, since he knew you needed it."
Thade narrowed his eyes in thought, "I guess that's possible, but Karai said she needed me alive to work for her, I duplicated the serum."
"Well, it could also be that the chemicals released from your brain so your cells could start building up tissue again, also released various other chemicals, something that messed with the imbalance with your hormones, causing to rise to anger quicker than usual.
The eldest rolled his eyes, "And here I thought I was the biologist."
"I'm simply being a scientist not a doctor."
"What's going to happen to me now? What did Leo say?"
"Well, he doesn't want you around us, if he was conscious and knew I was here I'd be cleaning the entire lair for the next month, on top of my other chores."
"So what's going to happen to me? Should I leave now and save Leo from kicking me out?"
"He's not kicking you out," Don protested, "You're just, going to be under surveillance for awhile. You're being moved to Raph's and Leo's old room, their taking our father's old room. Leo said the shrine's going to stay though."
The yellow masked turtle nodded, "Good."
There was an uneasy silence after that, ticking by for a whole minute that seemed like forever.
Don's eyes suddenly widened though, "Hey do you still want to try?"
"Try what?"
Don smiled, "The cloning, your brothers?"
Thade's eyes drooped until they closed completely, " I can't, the DNA samples, codes and information were all burned in the fire. I had to get you out of there."
"Oh yeah, you're right," Don said forlornly, his eyes falling to the floor, "They were burned in the fire."
Don smiled, "At least, the originals were."
Thade's eyes shot up as Don pulled his duffel bag, that had been slung over his shoulder when he came in, into his lap and pulled out a notebook, flipping to the first page. On the paper was every piece of the coded DNA and the information that went with each one."
"The DNA samples I can put together since it's all our DNA," Don explained, "I know it's a long shot but we can still try."
"Really?" Thade asked, his eyes wide as they scanned over the information printed out on the page, "But how?"
"I copied everything down, I thought you would grab the originals but I wanted a copy, I may not be much of a biologist or doctor any longer, but some things still fascinate me, especially cloning.
"So it's possible?"
Don nodded, "Very."
Karai paced the room without stopping nor even slowing until the doors were thrown open. She turned her angry green eyes on the entering Foot ninja ready to kill anyone who disturbed her when she was angry. Her eyes grew in wonder as they dragged in a large form behind them. Then, she smiled mischievously and walked towards the form, that was moaning in pain, as the Foot ninja scurried out the room like cockroaches.
"Good day," she breathed, looking down pathetically at the form at her feet.
The being shifted and raised himself up on his arms, a color of purple flashed against his skin and his onyx eyes rose to meet Karai's own prideful, shifting, emerald gaze.
He tried to speak but he was swiftly kicked in the jaw before his face was slammed against the floor. He felt the skin on his forehead split and he gulped at the sudden smell of blood.
What would she do to him? Did the others know?
"There, that's the last of it!" Mikey called out into the main room.
Leo looked up from where he was sitting on the couch and allowed himself a glance inside the room. Then, his eyes returned to the form of his still unconscious younger brother whose head was resting on his lap. Raphael's mask was a bit lopsided so Leo reached out and straitened it, smiling a small smile as the younger turtle shook his head for a second before lapping back into his unconscious state. Leo frowned and sighed before lifting his red banded brother up in his arms and making the short walk into the room.
"I left the shrine," Mikey said, pointing the small area of assorted objects the turtles had laid out to honor their father.
"Thanks Mikey," Leo said with an approving smile directed at his baby brother before crossing the room and slipped his red masked brother into his hammock.
"I'm gonna go check on Thade," Mikey said.
"Would you call Donatello as well?" Leo asked, "I'm uneasy about him being out this late on his own."
"Sure thing," Mikey said with a nod, "Oh and should I call April about all of Master Splinter's stuff."
"Please do," Leo said softly, his eyes not leaving his younger brother's unconscious form, "Perhaps she could find a place to store it for the time being until we figure out what to do with-"
Leo grinded his teeth together and let Mikey finish the sentence in his head. Mikey frowned and stepped outside what had been their father's room and now was Leo and Raph's room. Leo wouldn't hear of Thade staying with Mikey or Don any longer so…Mikey looked up at the second floor at the room the furthest to the left. Lightened laser beams were crossing the doorway, making the smallest room a makeshift prison cell. The youngest turtle frowned as he spotted a flash of yellow behind the bars. Don had set them up under his own wary thoughts and Leo's orders. They would decide what to do tomorrow, well, later this morning, since the digital clock on the VCR player read 3:23am.
Mikey sighed, and the others thought that their first year with Thade was dramatic, look what was happening now! Something or someone out there had to be conspiring against them.
Back inside the red and blue masked turtles' new room Leo got up from where he was sitting on his knees before the shrine in the room and walked back over to Raph's side. He watched his younger brother mumble a bit before the eyes under his red masked parted and a familiar shade of partly clouded over onyx looked back up at the blue clad turtle.
"Hey," Leo whispered softly.
Raph groaned before attempting to sit up. Unfortunately, his arms gave out underneath him and he fell back onto his hammock. He growled slightly before Leo reached out and helped him to sit up.
"You scared me Raph," Leo said first, "What happened in the dojo?"
Raph shook his head, trying to clear away the ringing echoing throughout his skull and raised his eyes to meet his older brother's gaze.
The red clad turtle avoided the question, or tried to, by asking one of his own, "Where is he? Where are we for that matter? How long was I out?"
Leo smiled with a relieved sigh, " First of all, Thade's currently in our old room. Don built a device to keep him inside, for now until we decide what to do. Secondly, we're in sensei's old room, I mentioned it to you in the dojo a few days ago remember?"
Raph thought for a few seconds, his mind still foggy since he had just woken up but then recalled when Leo had whispered the idea to him since the red clad turtle was weary of Thade staying with Don.
"And lastly," Leo continued, "As I said, you've been out for a few days."
"How many days?"
"Just two," Leo said, his worry still evident beneath his eyes.
Raph caught the spark and sighed, Leo was ALWAYS like that. Worry. Worry. Worry.
"Hey," Raph said softly, laying a hand on Leo's shoulder, "Stop worrying, I'm ok."
"You didn't see you Raph, the glass…the blood," Leo muttered gluing his eyes to the ground.
"Sorry, I just-I tried talking to him, but I think he's had too many chances," Raph said truthfully.
Leo didn't appear to be listening, his gaze was still glued to the floor, staring at something back in time. Raph sighed again and rolled his eyes. Time to be a little brother again…
The red masked turtle moved closer to his older brother before reaching out and hugging him, waiting until Leo returned the embrace.
It wasn't that the red banded turtle despised things like hugs, he just didn't think it was always necessary, you needed to know when to bash some common sense into someone's thick skull and when to give them what they needed. Unknowingly to him, Raphael had a special gift for the sense.
They sat like that in content silence before they heard the front door of their home was opened and they suddenly heard someone shouting.
"GUYS COME QUICK!"
Leo and Raph rushed out of their room, Leo having to steady Raph when he swayed slightly when they stopped in the main room. They found their purple clad brother gasping in the doorway of their home.
"I found it, I found all of them. It can be done!" Don yelled, jumping and dancing around randomly.
"I think he was out with Casey," Raph murmured, "He looks wasted."
"I'm not drunk, just ecstatic," Don said with a pout before he was nearly knocked over by a flailing Mikey.
"Dude what's wrong?" Mikey asked, quite out of breath.
Don ignored him and turned his head to the upstairs room on the left, "Thade! I found all the mistakes and made all the corrections it's all stable!"
Thade walked out from his room, conscious of the cameras and sensors tracking his every move, "Are you sure?"
"Definitely, come on," Don said.
Thade jumped down from the second level of the lair, aware that Raphael was glaring at him and Leo was staring at him with a cautious gaze."
"Come on! We just a few more details and it can be done," Don said, grabbing Thade's hand a dragging them to the second storage room they had built long ago after digging it out from the wall.
"Wait a minute," Leo said sternly, making the two genius turtles stop in their tracks, "I'm coming with you two."
Raph went to speak up but Leo slapped a hand over his mouth, "You are going back to be little brother."
Raph pushed the grassy green hand away, "But I'm fine!"
The red clad turtle swayed on his feet again, steadying himself with a hand against the wall.
"My point exactly. Mikey would you help Raph?"
"Permission to chain him to bed if he resists?" Mikey asked.
"Permission granted," Leo said with a cruel smile.
"WAIT! YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!" Raph yelled as his woozy mind allowed his baby brother to drag him back into his room.
Leo swept the humor from his eyes and turned a serious face on his older brother. Thade kept his eyes on the floor though.
"Go on," Don said, to Thade motioning to the storage room, "I'll tell Leo about the serum and it's crazy side affects."
The eldest nodded and slipped inside the second storage room, coming face to face with an old machine. Three large tubes stood in the center of the room, surrounded by computers and other machines. The tubes were filled with a green liquid, It was ready. Ten minutes later, after prepping for the experiment, the doors opened and Don and Leo walked in. The blue clad turtle's eyes locked with Thade's.
Understanding. Forgiveness. Brotherly affection.
For the first time in days, Leo smiled at him, and Thade smiled back at his little brother.
Karai scowled at the broken chip in her hand, "FAKE!"
A great tussle brought her attention away from the computer in front of her. When she turned, she found that Hun had escaped.
"FIND HIM! I WILL NOT HAVE THE FOOT EMPIRE COLLAPSE BECAUSE OF HIM!"
The Foot soldiers scrambled to follow her orders. Some of them slightly missing their previous master.
"Ready guys?" Don asked.
Thade nodded and slightly jumped when Leo reached out to lay a supportive hand on his shoulder.
After giving his older brother a reassuring smile, Leo turned curious eyes towards his purple clad younger brother, "What about their memories?"
"Already encoded into the DNA. They'll have all the memories back from the day we met Thade up to today."
"That's possible?" a new voice asked.
The three turtle turned to see Raph leaning against the wall with Mikey standing beside him.
"Raphael, you're supposed to be resting, " Leo reprimanded.
"Hey, I slept an hour, what do you want?"
Leo sighed, "Hothead," he muttered affectionately.
"Fearless Leader," Raph muttered back with a mock glare.
"We ready?" Don asked.
"Yep!" Mikey shouted.
Donatello turned to the switch in front of him and wrapped his olive hand around the lever. Leo patted Thade's shoulder when the eldest began trembling. Raphael kept his cautious eyes on the yellow masked turtle after looking over Don and Leo, relaxing when he realized that neither of them had come to any harm. Mikey himself was amazingly debating the controversial issue in his mind. Was this playing god? Creating life? Well, they certainly weren't going to be like some humans and just create them for extra body parts. After all, clones had lives to live too, right?
Thade had his eyes on the sealed tubes, it had been a month since they began and now, after speeding up they ageing process so they would match Thade's own age and inserting the memories already established. A creak came from the three tubes and there was a hiss as air escaped the containers. Thade bit his lip, suddenly thinking. Would T-7652, T-7653, T-7654 be just like Raph, Don and Mikey? Or would they be like Thade himself, similar but with small differences? What about names, they couldn't go by their experiment names. That would be cruel, as if they were robots or slaves to be called upon. A familiar sense of old imprisonment ran through the eldest's veins. The serum Thade had taken from the Foot had been analyzed, this time by himself again, by Donatello and by Leatherhead. The three reptiles were becoming close friends.
Thade's thoughts were distracted as the hissing of the air stopped and the steam or smoke that had been the cause of the hissing air began to clear as the shield coverings came off of the containers and the red liquid was drained out.
There was a smoked silence for a long minute before someone started coughing. The five turtles looked around, they were all fine so could it be?
"Hello?" a new voice said.
The voice had a deep tone but a formal pronunciation, a voice somewhere between Raph's and Leo's. Thade gulped, was it actually possible that it-well he was really his-
A nudge on his arm made Thade look back at Leo. The blue clad turtle urged him forward, motioning to the clearing steam.
"Hey Thade?" Raph called out as Thade took one step away from his younger brothers.
The yellow masked turtle glanced back, his onyx eyes meeting Raphael's.
"Yes Raph?"
Raph kept his signature scowl on, then, it seemed to fall away as Raph smiled, "Good luck bro."
Thade's eyes widened. Raph's eyes held forgiveness, but there was still caution. Well, it was a start.
"Thank you, little brother," Thade said, turning back to the thinning smoke.
The yellow clad turtle gulped and raised a hand to wave away the smoke. But then he froze when he spotted a shadow.
"What is it?" Mikey asked.
Thade lowered his head and his shoulders began shaking.
"Are you ok bro?" Don asked, ready to step forward and, well, do something.
"Yes, everything's perfect," Thade said, then his voice fell into a whisper.
His hand closed around a slightly smaller, younger hand than his own.
"Just perfect."
Bishop smiled over the chip that lay before him. Who needed a mutant turtle abomination?
A ringing in the distance sounded out around the dark room he stood in. There was a click.
"Hello?"
Bishop grinned as an evil look passed over his face. That bumbling idiot Hun had to establish that meeting at his old HQ. He had had cameras on the Purple Dragon gang the whole time and now, he could bend the Foot to his will.
Perfect.
"Good evening Karai, I have a proposition for you. I believe I have something you want."
THE END
THANK YOU EVEYONE WHO'S READ THIS! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
Ok, I think people get it. I can't say much more but I know I left some things open ended like the clones and Bishop's further actions, but NO I did not leave those open for a sequel. Those mysterious are for you yourself to solve. I have to really, truly thank everyone for the number of reviews I've received.
Now I have one last favor to ask of people. Please review this last chapter. There's 89 reviews for this story, so if I can get 11 more I'll reach 100. That would be a dream come true and if people did would update my other stories more quickly.
DragonMasterOf10 I know the story is over but I'd still love to see those pictures. You're an amazing artist. Although I noticed your DeviantART account has been deactivated. What's going on there?
Well, I've just got so much to thank everyone for and please I'm begging. PLEASE REVIEW! Just 11 more reviews and I'll reach that 100 level goal. Of course, that accomplishment doesn't mean the end of my stories. After I rest some since I finished writing this, I'd be happy to finish the next chapter of "A New Start".
PLEASE REVIEW!
Are we happy now turtles?
Turtles: Yeah.
YAY! I'm not getting chased or maimed. YAY!
I'll go out with a bang!
BANG!
See you all around! Goodbye!
~Moonsetta