Author's Notes: Big Six, i'm glad you enjoyed the humor. Things were getting really heavy, so we needed some light. LOL. More of Raph's reasoning will be revealed...that's all I'll say. Mikey IS the best, Raven, and I can't wait to get to A Tale of Heroes. Sounds good, Sciencegal. Now *hands everyone tacos* enjoy!
Disclaimer: TMNT belongs to Nick/Eastman/Laird. Nia Anders, Hugh Reese, Melody Gray, and any other Original Characters you notice belong to me. I'm in no way making any money. Thanks.

Chapter 21 - Fractured

Michelangelo stared in disbelief at the lanky cyborg, his poised fists lowering. "W—what? Why aren't you all…you know?"

"No, I don't, actually," the Nubian female countered. The dark skin around her robotic eye scrunched as she made a face beneath the carport's unplanned sunroof. "I was just flying, minding my own business with the promise of tacos until you glitched my wing!"

"Tacos?" Donatello parroted—an unsure eye set on the long, bony finger she pointed at Mikey.

"Yeah. Tacos. It's become easy pickings since I've gotten these wings; the stands are just a hair's breath away from the ground. How am I supposed to get breakfast now?"

Was she serious? The way she folded her arms and stood resembled someone who just been informed of a restaurant waitlist—not the top-notch fighter who had kept the Hamato brothers on the ropes.

"What are you; some human version of a falcon?" Mikey questioned. His voice squeaked with surprise, yet he took a step forward, clearing his throat.

"I think it's quite clear what I am," she countered, darker.

"I don't understand," remarked Don. "Why aren't you…fighting us?"

The round-featured cyborg flashed a look, like the brothers had grown several heads. "Why would I fight you? I'm off the clock. Though you did spoil my breakfast, so I may punch you. Fair warning; I'm hungry."

"Yeah, but—" Something cut Don off, probably his disbelief.

"You know who we are, right?" Mikey followed up.

"Yes. Your point?"

A deep growl roused in Michelangelo's throat when he cried, "The point is you took our brother!"

"Sorry; it's simple business on my part," the Nubian said with a shrug.

The youngest Hamato barely fought an urge to bum-rush her. He felt a tremble in his limbs and stepped forward; but Don placed a hand on his puff jacket and took his place as the head.

"What do you mean by that?" the genius questioned, obsequious. Great, Detective Donatello was on the case.

"You think we snatch people for shits and giggles?" she countered while taking a seat in the rubble. "We got a boss, so we do as he says. End of story."

"Your boss instructs you to kidnap people? Why?"

The Nubian twisted to place her long fingers against the contracted wing by her shoulder blade. "Just unimportant people," she noted bitterly. That brought a scowl to Michelangelo's face.

"Our brother is important to us," replied Don. He used more control than Mikey thought possible and rounded the seated cyborg until two yards from her side. "People will always have someone," he added, softer.

"Not exactly," the cyborg retorted while side-glancing.

"Senator Brooks' daughter has many waiting for her."

"She was an accident; I thought she was homeless."

"I see…so she's connected with this, after all."

The cyborg froze, large lips parted, at Donatello's nod.

"Did you happen to take a homeless woman who talks in third person as well? Calls herself Star."

"I'm not giving you a list!" Rocketing into a standing position, the tall female backed away in defense.

Still, Don approached her with slow, careful steps. "She has someone waiting for her, a man named Phil."

"Then Phil will be disappointed; Hall I is worse off than even Hall F."

"There are…halls of these people?"

The thought left an unsettling chill through Michelangelo's bones—worse than any cold storm. In his throat, oxygen hitched, though he forced it through with anger. When his fists clenched at his sides, he glared over his scarf, grinding his teeth as Donatello somehow maintained composure.

"Look"—stared the cyborg while fiddling with her wing again—"my free time is extremely limited. And my breakfast runs aren't exactly green-lighted. If I don't get back soon, the boss won't be happy. And if there's one thing you don't want, it's an unhappy master."

"But you aren't under any form of control," Donny added with a raised tone. "You don't have to do this!"

"I know," the young woman replied, forthright and grim.

"Then why would you…?"

She shrugged—a light action. "Why not? My parents never acted like I existed. The streets don't treat anyone fairly. I was just…surviving. At least this way I'm contributing to something and don't have to sleep under a bridge…or watch the adults eye me like I'm a tumor on this planet."

"Tabitha," Donatello whispered, as if struck by a realization.

The cyborg's long body tensed and she beat the side of her wing in panic.

"Tabitha Fall." The genius halted to send her a soft smile.

"Wh—what are you smiling at, idiot?" she questioned fiercely.

"You say your parents didn't notice you? Well, they did. You have a missing persons report on you, filed by Lynsey and Paris."

Tabitha snorted. "Probably because the neighbors asked where I was. They're much too busy with their work at Christian's University to notice on their own."

"Wasn't Christian's University a hit for the Little Reds?"

"'Little Reds'? Oh, you mean us. Yeah. And I can't say it wasn't fulfilling to steal from my parents' first born." The Nubian cyborg flashed a bitter smile, a flare brightening her robotic eye.

The purple-banded Chūnin met the glint easily, saying with evident confidence, "That means you still care for them. You care what they think. You want them to hurt over you. And they do, Tabitha. Mister Baker from the East Harlem Hotel has met them several times since they found out you frequented there. They're still searching for you."

"They don't care about me! No one cares about us—that's why we are where we are!"

"Yes, they do! Your friend, Sven Nass? His little brother Jakob has been practically living at the hotel in hopes of seeing him again!"

"Only because their father's a drunken ass, who will pick a fist fight with his sons over the stupidest of things!"

Heh. 'Stupidest' again. Mikey still thought it sounded weird as Tabitha's back met a cement pillar. The harsh force caused her to grunt in surprise or frustration. Behind her a swift rush of air accompanied the release of her second wing and she immediately studied its slender plates.

"Tabitha, please." For the first time, Don's voice wavered like his limbs. "People make mistakes. I know that. They fracture people, change them. When we've lost something we took for granted, we fight to get it back."

"Something tells me you aren't speaking about my parents."

"They must regret how they treated you. You should at least give them a chance before you succumb to—this."

Tabitha shook her heard adamantly at Don's gesturing hands. "It's not worth it. This way, I don't have people constantly judging me. I'm not cold. I'm not disappointed. I'm not…lonely. I have to keep collected in front of the others, but that's manageable."

"So you would rather rip others from their loved ones than return to your own?" Mikey cried, caustic in his rising of arms.

"They don't love me," insisted Tabitha through quivering lips. It was like a reminder she didn't want to admit, and it darkened her gaze. "They didn't want me before, and they sure as hell wouldn't want me now. Like…this. I'm better off where I am. The boss is right; I have no other place in society."

"That isn't true!" called Don with an outstretched hand.

The cyborg glared at him, yet remained silent. Their brief eye contact broke when a rumbling echoed through the vacant carport—soft like the passing of a car. Collected sparks of orange and white propelled Tabitha from the concrete and her rotating wings helped stabilize her slender form in the bitter cold. Mikey found the sight awesome, even if she was the enemy.

"So you'll continue kidnapping?" Donatello cried over the hum of her rocket boots.

"We'll do what the boss says," she answered in a dead tone.

"And my brother? What will your boss do to him?"

"He's another department."

"Another…What do you mean?"

"Sorry; I've already stayed too long."

"Wait!"

Donny lunged for the cyborg's metallic boot, but she displayed surprising agility for one with double-plated wings and rockets for feet. She spun with the grace of a ballet dancer—avoiding the genius' touch—and soared passed Michelangelo before his hands even reached his nunchakus. He whirled in her wake of disturbed air, only to find a thin vapor trail leading outside the car garage.

"Just perfect," the youngest grumbled, glaring into the orange sky.

Don joined him with a sigh. "At least it sounds like he's still alive."

"I guess…Hey! What are you doing?"

The genius pulled his brother closer by the collar of his puff jacket, saying, "You're going to help me find that power cell."

"Oh." Mikey flashed a weak smile. "Right."

Melody maintained calm breaths, regardless of how shaken her body felt in its seat at Hall F's monitoring station. Nerves, she realized. It was strange since they were supposedly not as sensitive as they were before her conversion. That didn't seem to matter at the moment.

'Doctor Stephens has always seemed eccentric, but recently…'

Eccentric didn't begin to cover him. The glints in his dark eyes were radically different than the ones Melody saw in Lombardo or felt in herself when working on projects. Now, live subjects didn't bother her—so long as they were used with reason. Lombardo adhered to this unsaid rule. Stephens?

He reveled in using them like it was a power trip.

Maybe it was. It wouldn't be surprising, given the nature of Black Lotus' inner workings. All of them were fractured in one way or another, staff and subjects. Melody simply felt her 'Master' was fractured more than others—to an uncomfortable degree.

'I barely left his office undetected before Lombardo found me in the hall. If he had caught me looking, discovering…that.'

The nerves shook with a new emotion—anger. Every doctor she'd met since awakening a changed woman had ensured the good intentions of the company. And she believed them. It's not as if she had anything else to strive for. Why not join their cause? Yet it seemed Stephens had his own agenda…

"Always the busybody, wanting to know my inner workings. Guess I wouldn't have chosen you otherwise."

'I can almost see what he meant by that. Still…how is he getting more bodies if not from Squad Five?'

"M—Mister Leonardo?"

Melody raised her head at Kaiya's timid voice. Her cool vision peered through the still-fractured glass, towards the young girl's cell set far below the monitoring station. The cyborg activated the zoom on her robotic eye for a better view, having already turned all the feed volumes up when she entered the long room.

"Mister Leonardo," Kaiya called again while sticking her little fingers as far through the mesh wall as possible. Her body shook and she grunted in aggravation, pressing closer against the barrier as if she could hit the mutant's arm if she did. "Mister Leonardo, c—can we sing that song? Please?"

"Song, song!" Rupert chimed in with an uncoordinated clap of his hands. "Rupert want Leo song!"

But Leonardo didn't stir at their voices. Despite his wakened state, he sat unmoving at the back of his cell—much like he had done after Abigail's death. She noticed the myoclonic twitches had died since then, but some still lingered in his arms. One had to wonder if that was now permanent damage.

"Mister Leonardo…where is Mister Joseph? Was he…taken?"

"Taken and served, kid," Donald added from the row obscured from Melody's view.

The little blonde whirled his way, wide-eyed. "S—served to what?"

"A le Chef Lombardo."

Melody scowled at the subject's degrading use of tone; Kaiya was just a child. Not that it mattered.

"Sh—she ate him?"

Donald laughed cruelly in response to the blonde's croak, which earned him a rude name from Cell F-5. "What, Little Miss Pampered?" he questioned, just as cruel. "That was funny."

"No, it wasn't," the feminine voice retorted. Melody knew the regal-like quality matched the elegance of its owners strawberry-blonde bob cut and defined pale features.

"I don't need a lecture from a senator's kid."

"Why do you have to treat everyone like they're below you?"

"Because people like your father taught me to."

There was a growl from Cell F-5, as well as a harsh clap. Donald snorted loudly at them, but a male voice spoke before Paige Brooks.

"You can choose to ignore what you're taught." Cell F-4's occupant spoke with a strange mix—like a street kid from the Bronx that had adopted a Chieftain accent. Or, maybe it had been the other way around, given the Native American features of Quill Greeves.

"I could," Donald remarked. "But then I wouldn't have near as much fun."

"You call mentally abusing people fun?" countered Paige heatedly. A rustle sounded. Maybe she was standing.

"Why not? It's not like your world's any different. Politicians are mental abusers…Not that senators are much use to begin with."

"Take that back!"

"Why? It's true."

"You don't know anything about my father or his goals!"

"Don't need to; they're all the same. Self-serving."

"Not all of them."

"Sure."

"Paige, you should relax before anyone is called," Quill suggested calmly.

A sigh later, more rustling sounded then settled.

"Called?" Cell F-3 filled with a scoff. "Please. You have to do something real bad for that. Hell, the first guy who took Abigail's spot killed himself in the night and wasn't caught. Who knew you could die with such a contorted expression just by—"

"Donald, stop it; you're making Kaiya cry!"

Paige's resonating bellow brought Melody's eye to the little blonde who wrapped her skinny arms tight around her drawn up knees. Like Leo, she stared forward, but without any recognition as her frame shook violently. She swallowed a hard lump then placed her hands over her ears and squinted, whimpering for her parents.

"No, I can save her! It's what I've been studying for! Please, let me save my mom!"

Melody jerked her head up, startled from a sudden voice in her mind. The heat in the room grew when she placed a robotic hand against the flesh of her left bicep, remembering the strong grip that once held her at bay. There was a sting in her organic eye as a smiling face flashed through her memory, but she forced it away by concentrating on Leonardo's stirring figure.

"Girl's gunna have to toughen up anyway," said Donald.

"Just because you had a bad childhood doesn't mean you need to take it out on anyone else," Paige retorted in an undertone.

"Says the girl without a bad childhood."

"You don't know that."

"Whatever; I can tell when others' had a bad childhood. You didn't."

It must've been true because Paige remained silent.

"See? You didn't get to grow up with a prostitute mother and her pimp. And you sure as hell wouldn't know what it was like fighting for her attention when your perfect older brother always over-shadowed you."

"A prostitute?"

"That's a side-note. I didn't care how many guys mom entertained; it was Kpop that acted like my dad."

"And Kpop is?"

"The pimp."

"I see."

"He helped me and Mitchell make connections. We were never part of an affiliation, though. Not until Juvi. That's where I met the Forty-Four Street Crew."

"What a winner."

"Hey!" Donald paused (maybe to face Paige) and his voice rose in contempt. "It was a life, alright? The only thing I hated about it was Mitchell. Mom's favorite son from a real marriage"—he said this with acidic loathing, probably rolling his eyes—"God, I hate him. It's always 'Mitchell this' and 'Mitchell that'. Mitchell, Mitchell, Mitchell."

"You never tried to work with him?" Leonardo questioned. His soft voice almost dissipated within the group, but it earned all their attention from what Melody could gather.

"He liked being the high and mighty one," countered Donald. "Always looked down on me."

"Like you do to others?" Paige added.

"You kids are all so petty," a new voice interjected from afar. Gruff and sardonic in its tone, it wasn't one Melody recognized. And its owner couldn't be spotted.

"Oh, goodie; news from the peanut gallery!" Donald shouted while clapping his hands.

"You're such a stupid kid, Donald," the voice continued.

"And it's good to know you're still alive, Chandler. I gotta say, the ends get so quiet nowadays, it's hard to tell who's still here."

"You've wasted your youth with superficial jealously."

"You're lucky I ain't over there, old man."

"Foolish. All of you. It's a shame you're going to die without realizing…anything."

"Now I remember why I didn't question if you were alive. I don't give a damn."

"You don't care about much, except yourself." Chandler sighed—a haggard action. "It's not how you should live. I learned that all too late…"

"Thanks for the pep talk, Gramps. Now, if you'll excuse me—I think I'd rather pick off rotting flesh from my arm instead of listen to you."

"The young ones…never want to listen."

"None of you can agree on anything, can you?" Leonardo spoke again, but his astonished voice was quieter and it went unanswered as the remaining subjects fell into another argument.

Melody watched his bare head hang, his three-fingered hand gripping his twitching arm as if it would flap around otherwise. Over the monitor, he said something that died under the chatter of Rupert. The special man rocked in his cell like Kaiya, resorting to the song Leonardo had taught days ago. Together, the voices of Hall F melded into maddening garble until…

"Hey, Melody."

The blonde tore herself from the dizzying emotions surging through her. She stood in an instant, reset her robotic eye, and then turned towards Tabitha. The Nubian cyborg kept an even expression—like normal—but behind her usually apathetic gaze, uncertainty had been uprooted.

"What are you doing here?" Melody questioned, careful.

"I…uh…I want to talk."

"Good." The blonde glanced back at Hall F then Tabitha. "I must speak with you as well."

Author's Notes: Tabi's a completely different person off the clock! And what's this? Conspiring, maybe? "Pokerface" is next where Don reveals how he and Mel met as well a surprise visit. Then, some Amanda. Also, yes, Donald's a huge ass.