Slow motion – a simple and well know phenomenon describing the suspension of time at a rate that still contains gravity, a period that twists the reality of time and speed and gravity in themselves. One that can be understood by even the least complex of minds, comprehended as a unit of occurrence in events such as the first kiss of a first lover, or a player shooting for the final point.
One that cannot be completely absorbed until it is experienced not as a metaphor or as diction but as an aspect of reality.
That was the first thought that came to Leo when he found himself a captive in the confines of time, a unit that prevented his own reaction as well as the continuation of the present's events, trapping all in a window that held the moment of numbness long enough for the thought to be a bullet smacking his brain.
The next step was fast motion – a phenomenon that induced the speed and adrenaline of a moment by more than half of the regular occurrence, stealing the ability to contemplate but fueling the ability to act. He was not aware of his moment as he swung through the air, the fast motion carrying him like a bolt of light through the electric wires, airborne one second and suspending the man in question with his over stimulated strength in the next. He did not have time to be aware to the blood from the alternate source that has squirted on his cheek, or the horror of the room around him.
The only focus he had was to rid the world of this monster.
The action of the wooden staff crashing onto his opponent's head was the signal that revived the state of casual gravity, the return of unity between the conscience and the action. He became aware to the shaking in his fists and to the tears on his face, and to the fact that his brother's weapon led the man in his grasp to unconsciousness.
"Leo, what are you doing? I think you and I have bigger problems to worry about right now, we can deal with him later!" Donnie tells him, and he thinks it may be the first time he cowered under a little brother's assertiveness.
It was then that all three states of time melded into one, the air pressing like a blade to his chest and freeing like the speed of a thunderstorm. In the bed lay his baby brother, who was practically destroyed from the middle and sleeping in a pool of blood. Just near him, their hands still interlocked, his other younger brother sat in blood of his own, very obviously losing energy. Where he and Donnie previously stood, he saw their best friend, coughing blood through harsh breaths and holding onto his toxic wound.
And to the left of the bed lay the love of his life, blood squirting through the spaces of her fingers that clasped onto her throat.
Donnie was the first who recaptured the sense of thought, his instincts to treat and to protect dominating those of fear. He quickly examined the four injured, knowing that he had to put the perspective of a medic above the perspective of a loved one. Raph seemed to be in the best shape, although he was, by far, not off the hook either.
Karai, on the other hand, didn't look so hot.
"Raph, you think you could help me a little bit buddy?" Donnie asks, trying to figure out how they were going to transport everyone home without a car.
If everyone would make it past here, at least.
"Yeah Don, I can always help," he answered, a bit slurred and out of breath.
"Call April and tell her to get both Master Splinter and Kirby to come here quick, and with a car. I'm gonna see what I can do for you guys in the meantime, okay?" Donnie says, placing the phone in Raph's empty hand.
Out of Casey, Mikey, and Karai, it was rough telling which one was worse off. He could only stand in his own circle of shock for a moment, forgetting how to count his own breaths.
"Kirby is on the way. April said something's wrong and Splinter can't come," Raph rasps.
"Fucking damnit," Donnie mutters hatefully, slapping his forehead to get ahold of himself.
"Okay, okay. Raph, keep watch over Mikey. Leo, you go to Karai and I'll go to Casey," Donnie commands kneeling quickly to examine his self-assigned person.
Leo's travel to his immobile lover was just as agonizingly slow as it was uncontrollably fast, trembling fingers dragging him forward and thrusting him beside her in the reality. Her pained hazel eyes were wide open, the harsh intakes of her chest revealing that she was still alive. Staring down so directly towards her brought him back to a memory, a memory that was the very most sweet with a small tang of chilling bitterness.
A memory of the first time his eyes had locked onto the curves of her body with such focus, when they had first lay together as eternal lovers. A memory that will now always be distorted by the way he looked down at her now, bright white skin stained in an unattainable blood spill.
It was not particularly difficult for her to realize his presence, whether it was from her kunoichi skills of recognizing nearby movement or whether it was that the smell of him always stimulated her spirit. "L-Le-Leo?" she hisses, ignoring the pain to say what she needed to say.
After all, she always did have a pretty accurate state of mind that would tell her when an ending was near – and she feels that her state of living is reaching a conclusion.
"Shh," he says, breaking a little out of the shock to cradle her delicately to his chest. "It's okay baby, you're okay. You don't have to worry about anything."
He nuzzles his cheek into her temple and strokes a large hand down the back of her hair, moving to kiss her forehead. "Oh Karai…what have you done?"
"I h-had t-to d-do som-something good. I h-had t-to pr-prove th-that I'm a g-good p-person. And I h-had t-to save th-the k-kid," she smiles weakly.
"My princess, you are always the best person," he says, a single tear dropping from his eye when she smiles back at him.
"L-Leo, y-you are t-the on-only pe-person who I ev-ever l-loved, b-but y-you de-deserve be-better. You a-are the b-best pe-person I ever met, an-and I ru-ruined th-that. I wa-wanted t-to b-be like y-you, to b-b-be a her-hero. O-Once I sa-saved y-you, I di-didn't have to b-be here any-anymore. You-you're gon-gonna do great things, o-okay Leo?" she says, using all of her energy just to say her final words.
"Knock it off Karai, it's not like you're gonna die or something. I know how much you love to be overdramatic and to mess with me but it ain't the time," Leo replies, suddenly much more aggressive in contrast to his previously delicate attitude.
"L-Leo," she says, her expression saddening.
"You're not dead, okay? You're alive and you're gonna be, because you aren't going to die without me. You're going to die with me, when we are much older after we have done what we can to put our touch on the world, being heroes. We will die together in one final battle against all the forces of evil and I know they won't be able to defeat you because you will be the most powerful and honorable hero in all of the universe. You aren't gonna die because I still must show you all ten seasons of space heroes and we must have a Christmas party and we must sneak into a Green Day concert and all the other stuff we planned. Okay? Do you understand me Karai?" he doesn't realize how much his voice is shaking nor the tears staining his pale skin.
"Ba-baby, that isn't the w-way it's sup-supposed to be. T-to me, keeping you s-safe and mak-making sure every-everything goes al-alright for y-you is t-the most her-heroic thing I c-could ev-ever do. Y-you a-are go-gonna do all those things, an-and I will be gui-guiding you. You're sp-speciaL Leo-Leonardo. I didn't be-believe in an af-afterlife until I h-had to won-wonder wh-where I would wa-wait for you," she explains, burning to grasp onto a little bit more life.
Leo begins sobbing lightly, thinking of what force he could possibly conjure to save her. Would he be able to exchange his life instead?
"You-you can do that f-for me, ca-can't you L-Leo?" she asks him, her eyes gazing to him warmly.
"I," his gallons of self-doubt and insecurities securely hidden by his shock and terror. "I-I can do anything for you. Anything you want."
She smiles, moving her hand weakly away from her hemorrhaging wound to delicate hold both of his blood splattered cheeks. She motions for him to come closer, not having enough strength to pull herself up to him.
"Leo-Leonardo, you were the only good thing to e-ever ha-happen to m-me," she hisses, blood pouring out of her mouth and nose.
"No Karai, it isn't like that. Things aren't done happening to you and you're going to meet people from all over the world, and we're going to go home and make that banana split that you never tried because Casey just bought the ingredients! It's going to be so fun and-"
"I-I love you," she says, hardly above a whisper, her breaths picking up pace. "Thank you."
He remains oblivious to her worsened conditions and to her lightly paced last words, continuing to rant over the plans of desserts and movie nights and traveling that was never going to be a reality.
He remained oblivious to the desistance of her pulse and of the lack of movement of her bloody chest.
"Come on Karai, why aren't you answering me? You know I hate it when you do that – you always listen! You're the only one who listens because we're supposed to be just us against the world right? You wouldn't lie to me, I know you'd never lie to me because you said you aren't leaving and I said you aren't leaving and we're done with breaking rules, aren't we?" he begins to rant frantically, his words tripping over each other at a rate that was incomprehensible.
"WHY AREN'T YOU ANSWERING ME, GODDAMNIT?! I KNOW YOU'RE ALIVE, I KNOW YOU ARE! SEE, YOU'RE PERFECTLY FINE, IT'S NOT REAL! I MUST JUST BE HIGH AGAIN! YOU'RE PERFERCTLY FINE! HA HA HA! YOU WERE ALWAYS SO GODDAMN FUNNY, ALWAYS UP TO YOUR TRICKS!" he screams, his voice fading from furious to a laugh that made the others burn with chills through everybody in the room.
The maniacal form of Leo proceeded to shake her body violently to wake her up, causing her blood to splash all over him and the others in the room. "WHY THE FUCK AREN'T YOU ANSWERING ME?"
"SHE'S FUCKING DEAD, GODDAMNIT!" Donnie replies in frustration, his own face appearing that all the organs had been ripped straight out of his body.
As soon as his sentence had concluded the door flung open, Kirby entering the room.
"Oh my god," he says in horror, flinching at the sight surrounding him.
"KIRBY, YOU HAVE TO HELP US! CASEY AND MIKEY ARE DYING AND RAPH IS GONNA BE ON HIS WAY IF-"
"Shh, it's alright Donnie boy. The car is just outside; you'll just have to help me carry them okay?" Kirby says in his best attempt at comfort, beginning to tremble himself at the tragic gore around him but remembering that he is the adult of the situation.
Donnie nods nervously, tenderly handing the hyperventilating Casey to Kirby as he moves over to cradle Mikey, his panic attack intensifying at the bloody tattered mess that was his baby brother. Kirby came running back immediately to lift Raph, placing all of them gently in the back of the van.
"Don't think you're getting away, son of a fuck," Donnie says, striking The Psychologist one more time to assure unconsciousness and throwing him carelessly into the closable trunk.
"Do you want me to wait in the car for this one?" Kirby whispers, gesturing to were Leo continued to seek response from Karai's deranged corpse.
"Yeah, I'll try to make it as quick as I can," Donnie says, darting over to his borderline psychotic older brother.
"Leo, sweetie we have to go. We're going to lose the others too if we don't get them medical attention as fast as we can," Donnie says, lightly putting a hand on Leo's shoulder only to have it violently brushed off.
"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, DON DON?!" he laughs, obviously not mentally intacted. "NOTHING'S WRONG WITH ANYONE, EVERYTHING'S OKAY!"
"No Leo, Karai's dead and so will be the others if- "
"KARAI'S NOT DEAD!" he screamed, shoving Donnie hard enough for him to fly to the other side of the room and crack the wooden wallboards.
"Okay Leo, okay. But you and Karai gotta go get in the van, alright? We gotta go somewhere!" Donnie says, reaching for the eldest's bloody hands.
"Okay! C'mon Karai, we gotta go somewhere! Isn't that fun, maybe we'll meet some new friends there and everything!" Leo says, lifting her into his arms and following Donnie's urgent lead.
Making sure that everyone was safely secured into the van Donnie jumped in as well, signaling for Kirby to floor it as fast as he possibly could.
"You hanging in there, buddy?" Donnie asks Casey, noticing that he was still conscious.
"Donnie?" Casey asks, his voice timid and young and afraid.
"Yeah, it's me Case. I'm gonna make you all better, alright?" Donnie reassures.
"Could you li-like, hold my hand?" he asks, "You know; li-like buddies d-do."
Donnie reaches down and squeezes the grip on his best friend's hands, pushing the wild hair out of his face.
"Why would you go out and do that for me, Jones?" he asks in a monotone.
Casey laughs lightly, coughing fatally in return. "Why would such a smart guy like you ask somethin' so stupid? You got a lot more to live for than me by a long shot, dude. You just started getting' better and you got a family and girl at home to love ya, and you're a 21st century genius. What do I got? I'm the last one livin in my family and I ain't got no girl, and I ain't nothin but a high school dropout that likes hitting pucks and bashing heads. And besides all that, y-you know what our code is. Best friends do anything for each other, even if it means life or death."
"You have a family, you degenerate simpleton. What do you think I would do without ya, huh?" Donnie says shakily, trembling without control.
"You'll be fine D, just like I told ya. You turnin' out just fine, y'know that?" Casey says, holding his friends' hands to his heart. "Ya think it's normal to be scared to die?"
"You don't need to be scared, you're going to be okay," Donnie says, more so assuring himself. "An anterior bullet wound to the abdomen can be survivable you know."
"Ha, who would ever have thought the last thing I'd here would be ya nerd talk," Casey says. "And ya know what buddy? I wouldn't want it to be anything else."
"Stop talking like that Case. You're alright, ok? You're Casey Jones – the stubborn ass who doesn't let anything succeed him. Some old bullet isn't enough to take that out, is it?" Donnie says urgently, glancing his attention towards his brothers.
Raph was hanging by a delicate string of consciousness as he was cuddling into Mikey, who appeared to be even more lifeless than Karai; physically deranged and in complete lack of any form of movement; but his persistent pulse proved the contrary. Donnie reached out a weak hand in horror to his baby brother, wondering how it could be possible for such an awful, unimaginable atrocity to happen to such a pure and innocent person. The shock was still too much for him to actually take in, still trying to figure out if it was a truth of life or another demented nightmare.
The constant insane blabber of Leo was beginning to drive him insane, all his words so twisted in nature and upsetting enough to make Donnie's stomach sick. Although he lacked the power of reaction, he was conscious to the seed of insanity that shadowed his mind every time he opened his eyes.
Raph was falling out of his mind as well, the physical distortion contributing even more so. He was continuously attempting to wake up Mikey, his voice more small and defenseless as it had ever been. The environment was the most nauseating that he had ever experienced, not only for the blood that he forgot was dripping down his fingers but for how much he felt himself slowly going more and more insane.
Just before he could allow himself to unwind into the claws of the demons that were sucking against his feeble laired skin, the harsh slam of car breaks jolted the brims of his sweat ridden forehead against the wall of the shaking van, signaling that it was his cue to jet.
Kirby O'Neil was a frantic enough human as it is, in cases that didn't involve primary responsibility to a multitude of dying kids. Donnie would dare to say he was proud of the stability levels the guy pretended to put on for the time being, but his mind was far too gone to concern over an overdramatic middle aged psychiatrist and his typical irrational anxiety.
"Raphie? Can you hear me buddy?" Donnie asks, his voice soft as a wide spread white bedsheet that has never been corrupted upon and as shattered as the same bedframe that had been snapped into pieces all at the same time.
Raph took a few minutes to register what he was hearing, reaching his hand dependently out to his little brother. Donnie was instant to take grasp of his hold, holding it securely against his cheek.
"Yeah Don. I can hear ya."
"We're home now, alright? We just gotta get everybody patched up. I'm going to take Mikey now, alright? I'll settle him down and then I'll come back to get you. Is that alright?" Donnie asks, tears streaming down both sides of his cheeks.
"Yeah, it's alright D. Everything's good," he replies, his eyes rolling about and falling deeper into the seduction of unconsciousness.
Kirby takes hold of Casey, signaling for Donnie's go time. He raises his baby brother as delicately as possible, fearing that the slightest brush of pressure would make the shards of his ripped body collapse. He wished so badly to hold him and kiss his forehead and never allow him out of his arms again, but he knew that in such circumstances there was no time to sensate emotional agony.
April and Splinter were inside the infirmary, apparently transported with the help of Kirby. Splinter was unconscious but appeared to be nothing more. He had stable vital signs and no apparent injury, other than a state of unconsciousness from a heavy induced tranquilizing pill. April was pale by the face and a lot more stunned than she was when she had first awoken. She was obviously still ill and fragile but the adrenaline of the situation had knocked her into a state that could be considered helpful to say the least.
"Kirby, hook up Mikey and Casey to the ventilator system while I go bring in Raph. Start working on Casey and then I'll have April help me out after I help Leo and Karai," Donnie says, splitting as fast as possible back to the van.
Raph had fallen unconscious, resting in a collapsed huddle within a pool of fresh blood. Donnie took note of Leo's place in the corner, cradling Karai's corpse and communicating in a medley of slurred incoherent phrases accompanied with an unsteady and cracked form of laughter. It was obvious that he was thrown off the cruelest edges of insanity, almost completely disconnected from his right mind but still hanging somewhat in there. Just enough for Donnie to get him back, if he were to act now.
"Come on Leonardo," he says sternly at first, lifting Raph with as much care as he could at his weight. "We've got to go help our brothers."
Leo disregarded Donnie's acknowledgement completely, continuing his one-sided conversation with Karai that was distorted to the tape of an audio that could be used as a torture device into Donnie's brain for the rest of his existence.
Donnie sighs in grieved and aching frustration, setting down Raph and clenching his fists as he walks to his oldest brother. As much as he didn't have time for this, not having a mentally stable Leo to help them was even more of a critical risk to take.
He grabbed ahold of his shoulders with no hesitation, being able to knock him off contact from Karai with one move. He slaps his brother hard across the cheek, immediately silencing the unhinged gibberish.
"Leonardo, you need to listen to me," he says, tightening his grips on the shaking shoulders as securely as he could. "Karai's dead. She's not alive anymore. We're going through a tragedy right now and to be honest I don't know how we are going to survive this. But you need to understand that it isn't over and that we can make the tragedy a little less severe if we understand that it isn't time to grieve. Just look at Raph, he's bathing in his own blood for fuck's sake. And Casey? He took a bullet to his chest and he's getting ready to die and everything. And Mikey? Our sweet little baby who we swore to protect from any sign of harm? He's hardly even fucking recognizable after what physical and emotional torture he went through and if he does survive this I know he's sure as hell never gonna be the same ever again. Karai's dead Leo, and that's a fucking unimaginably awful thing but it's the truth. You know it's the truth and that's why you're letting yourself unravel into insanity. And don't get me wrong, you have every goddamn right to feel like that. But there's an aspect to tragedies that includes putting things aside, even things great enough to destroy you. The reason for that is because if not everybody's going to be fucking dead. Do you understand me?"
Leo stares at his younger brother dead in the eye, the expression in his irises morphing from those laced with hysteric derangement to those with exhaust and depletion. The glance alone is enough to break his heart all over again, wishing it was possible to forget it. He finally nods delicately, his body stripped clean of emotion or reaction. He slowly kisses Karai's forehead and moves her body into a comfortable position, giving a tiny nod to himself again before he picks up Raph.
"Donnie?!"
The feminine shrill of terror was enough to have Donnie at the scene at the flash of lightning, Leo slowly trudging behind him with Raph in his grasp. April was trying to lift Casey, who had apparently thrown himself off all his medical supplies.
"What the fuck Jones? Are you kidding me?" Donnie growls, leaning down to grab the sleeves of his best friend's bloodstained shirt.
"No D, No-no-no-no," Casey says, slapping Donnie's arm with a pathetic amount of energy. "You ain't gotta be worried about me. You gotta help the kid, and our Raphie," he says, a hoarse gasp.
"Casey, you're being a fucking idiot, to be frank. Get back in bed now so that I can get to everyone," Donnie says, beginning to grow frantic.
"D," he says, reaching to grab his friend's wrist. "You don't understand. I don't need to be here anymore. I'm done here, remember? I've served my purpose. I've avenged my little sister. I've made sure you all are happy again. I've understood, happiness, love, adventure, family. The others, they still have so much to live for. There is so much for them to do here, don't ya understand? I gotta go look after Angel now."
"No, you aren't pulling this suicidal bullshit again. You have tons to live for," Donnie says, attempting to pick up his friend but failing due to the low pressure of his blood.
"D," he says, his voice beginning to give away. "This little family we got going on here was the best present I ever got. You turned out pretty alright, kiddo. Shit's gonna get better for ya guys, I swear to god it is."
Donnie isn't able to respond, staring at him with wet eyes.
"And ya know what Don?" he gestures to whisper, "Out of all the shit you've made me, the best one was something I thought I'd never have. Ya know, before you guys were in my life, I'd never guess that I'd die happy."
Donatello shakily rests his finger on his friend's hand, his shriveling heart sinking to the bottomless pit of his abdomen when he feels the hand lose grip.
April kneels closer, her crying becoming excruciating when her frantic search for her friend's pulse was a failed mission. She snaps upwards at the touch on her finger, seeing both her father and Leo looking down coldly towards her, reminding her of the ideology that would get them out of this.
Time for grieving has not been salved.
She nods, holding a hand against her ribs and carefully standing back to her feet. Donnie does not move a muscle, other than the skin under his eye twitching.
Mikey being violated. Sound of gushing blood. Blood drops showering his face. Slit throat. Hysteric Leo. Laughs, laughs, laughs so impossibly unbearable. Broken brothers. Sleeping Dad. Casey.
The events were repeating themselves at top speed on a loop in his mind, cutting into the very vein that kept him intacted.
Her voice echoing into the fog behind him, his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he passed out.
X
Before he gained enough control over his body to open his eyes, Splinter knew that something was horribly wrong.
The atmosphere was cloudy before visibility, his heart restrained by the warnings of perilous circumstance that comes with being a parent. Contrasting his previous immobile state of limbs, he burst awake with eyes wide open, shuddering at the smell of blood.
He became frozen within the moment of visibility, each crack of the puzzle surrounding him a different shard that sliced through the vulnerable flesh of his heart. The human boy who he had come to know so well was laying very obviously dead across the pavement, beside an unconscious form of his son. Two other sons were paralyzed within the chords of medical procedure, their skin a light shade of crème olive and stained by dried blood. His final child was standing ominously beside the littlest one, and despite his state of consciousness he appeared the most lifeless of them all.
"Splinter?" April asks him, her voice tired, broken, and afraid.
Despite his many years of capability in the case of any task that hit him, Splinter did not have the capability of forming words to say out loud.
He sat up after a slight flinch, shaking the senses back into his body and reaching out desperately for anything he could possibly feel. Even looking directly towards Leonardo, the only thing that he could see was his own distorted reflection in the foggy glass windows that once held so much personality, complete void mirrors of nothingness. It was hard to recognize the smallest one through all his medical bandages, a breathing tube sticking through his impossibly small face and pale skin. Raph did not look as bad off, but the cracks of his broken lips were almost as damaged as his legs. It didn't look like he would ever recover, taking away everything he had worked so hard for.
Donatello was not injured at all other than a few scratches and a lifeless appearance, his hand still intertwined with the corpse of his dear friend.
"Donatello?" he asks, his voice a bit hoarse, believing that out of the four the child gave the biggest possibility of responding.
April whimpered a little, squirming out of her father's grasp to reach out for her lover for his support, sensing his return to conscience moments before it went into action. Once he abruptly sat up, the sockets of his eyes twitching out in a sense somewhere in-between over immurement and forced liberation. He shuddered, in an attempt to free himself from the blood dripping down his fingers, matching blood shot eyes looking first into those of his dearest lover; a being that seemed a little too out of touch to rationalize reality. Laying her delicate fingers in the palm of his hand, he turned his head to see his father, the hazel eyes of anguish and broken fatherly love reducing his age of mentality by at least a half. He turns back to give April a glance of reassurance, both agreeing that before they were meta-adults in the name of loving; they were children, terrified children who were undergoing a trauma unlike ever before.
Children who were in need of the warm comfort of their fathers.
"Daddy…" Donnie whispers, his lanky legs shaking and threatening his state of balance as he stumbled into the direction of his parent, curling into a ball in his protective arms. Splinter held his child as tight as he possibly could while still treating him with the delicacy of a feather, stroking his head at the same rate as his breathing increased.
Donnie held as tightly as possible onto his father's robe, wishing he could shelter his face within it as he did as a child spooked out of bed from a nightmare. Wishing he could eradicate the surrounding smell of blood, the smell of death and the smell of grief from his psyche permanently.
As much as he desired to hide in cloak of his father, for the remainder of eternity, the sound of Raph's stirring set him off into alertness.
He could not forget the dominating principle – his role as a medic always came before his casualty of grieving.
April was already lingering over Raph, worriedly stroking his arms. Donnie walked over to his older brother, Splinter peering behind him. Just as he began to check his vitals for a double check, his emerald eyes cracked open, immediately sithering over the pain in his legs.
He cried in pain, Donnie and April preventing him from jumping right out of the bed. Splinter jumps up to grab his child's wrists, attempting at a lullaby that he would sing to comfort them as children.
"Raphie," Donnie says, breaking the silence that stung all of those in its capacity with a static suffocation. "I'm so happy you're okay."
"Donnie? He asks, holding a palm to his forehead in an act of fear, confusion, and pain. W-What happened?"
"Raph, do you remember what happened back there?" Donnie asks him.
"Y-Yeah," Raph shudders, his skin blanketing with chills as the memories flash before him. "B-But what happened after I passed out?"
April put a hand to his shoulder, her fingers trembling against his skin. He looks up at the three of them in vulnerability, shaking his head and pushing head through the middle to glance around the middle of the room.
"What the fuck Donnie," he says, bitterness stinging his voice. "Why would you leave Casey on the floor like that? What the hell is wrong with you?! He's gonna die like that, fucking retard!"
"Raphael," Splinter begins with a crack in his voice, seeing that Donnie and April did not have the strength to muster a response.
"What, Master Splinter? Aren't you going to do something about this? Why aren't you helping him?" Raph asks, tears running down his cheeks like he already knew that he was only lying to himself.
"Raphael, Casey Jones is not with us anymore," Splinter says.
"No," Raph says, "That isn't true! Why does everyone keep lying to me?! Mikey's dead too, isn't he? ISN'T HE?!"
"No baby, Michelangelo is going to survive," Splinter says, unable to resist his tears.
Raph's pathetic cries of pain patter into sobs of one that is lost so far into a deep black hole that they can't find their way home anymore. Splinter holds his child and cries with him, unable to move his eyes from Leo's vegetable like form.
Donnie turns around aggressively, locking his eyes onto the floor and subconsciously digging his nails into his cheeks. April reaches out for his shoulder timidly and squeezes it, hoping to find some sense of more whole by holding his arm.
Yet then air felt spicier than it should have, the sensation of the tingling of flames enveloping around her skin. The thumps in the floor shook inches deep into her bones, hazing the broken feelings into those of anger and violence, telling her that the threat was definitely not over.
"Didn't think I'd just go miss out on all the fun, did you all?" she hears, turning her wide eyes up towards the space behind them to see a man covered in blood and dirt and a lust for murder, a man no other than The Psychologist himself, standing right in front of her.