Searing Hurt Pt. 8

Leo

Leo gazed at the hole in the earth inches from his feet. It was a little over a yard in diameter and seemed to go straight down, the bottom shrouded in inky blackness. He looked up at the wolf beside him. "You're joking."

"One hundred percent serious, Greeny." Fang handed him a flashlight and nodded towards the hole. "That's tha opening a' Sear's lair. Have fun."

"But..." Leo gestured down at the hole. "Do you even know how deep this goes? How do you expect us to get back up?"

Before the wolf could respond, a large porcupine mutant emerged from the trees surrounding them. Frothy saliva dripped from its sharp, yellow teeth, and its quills turned rigid as it released a low, threatening growl. Fang raised his rifle. "Go! Now! More of 'em will show up the longer we wait!"

"For the love of-" Leo flipped on the flashlight and held it in his mouth, then glanced at Ara. She nodded silently, so he grit his teeth around the metal of the flashlight and eased himself into the opening in the ground, pressing the sides with his hands and feet to avoid falling to the bottom. For a split second, he had the horrible thought of a huge snake shooting up from the darkness below and swallowing him whole. He shuddered and forced himself to focus as he carefully made his way further down into the pit. His heart lurched in his chest every time the dirt that made up the sides of the hole slipped loose from under his hands and went showering downwards, hitting the bottom with a grainy patter.

"I'm coming down after you, Leo," Ara called from above.

Leo nodded, realized she probably couldn't see him, and was about to utter a muffled 'okay' when the root he was gripping with one hand tore free from the earth the exact same moment the dirt beneath his feet slid loose. He plummeted downwards with an alarmed shout, scrabbling futilely at the crumbling sides of the tunnel the whole way. "Oof!" Bottom met turtle, and Leo gasped as the breath was knocked out of his lungs.

"Leo!" Ara shrieked from above. "Leo, are you-?"

"Fine!" Leo shouted up as he clambered onto his hands and knees with a little groan. "I'm fine!" His eyes swept across his surroundings, but he couldn't make anything out in the complete darkness. He'd lost the flashlight when he'd shouted during the fall. He didn't know how the damned thing had turned off when it fell, but it clearly had. Great. "Sewer apples," he muttered under his breath as he felt along the smooth ground beneath him for the metal cylinder. The bottom of the pit seemed to be large and cavernous, because he wasn't coming across any walls. He crawled around blindly, and the cool stone beneath him dipped occasionally, only to rise back up again. It was like it was made out of a lot of long, sloping hills.

"You lost the flashlight, didn't you?" Leo heard Ara land lightly beside him, a good deal more gracefully than his unplanned touchdown.

"It has to be around here somewhere," he muttered in reply.

"Aha!" Leo looked up to see a beam of light cut through the air before coming to rest under Ara's chin. Leo felt his chest tighten with relief at the sight of her familiar face, beautiful despite the fact that her features were warped by shadows and patches of light. "Found it. It was still on and wedged in a crevice so you'd have to be right over it to see it the light."

"Thanks." Leo stood and walked to Ara. She handed him the flashlight, and Leo couldn't help but notice that her warm fingers lingered on his for a beat longer than technically necessary. A little shoot of excitement shot up his arm and into his heart before ricocheting down to light up his stomach with a swirl of butterflies like a pinball hitting it's target.

Leo rolled his eyes in the darkness, exasperated with himself. He needed to put his crush aside so he could focus. Leo cleared his throat and swept the beam of the flashlight around their surroundings, flakes of dust and dirt swirling in the bath of light. The earthen ceiling stretched about five feet above their heads. The cavern was the size of a large room, and it didn't seem to have any doors or tunnels branching from it. Rolling, uneven rock made up the floor.

Leo's body felt like a tense, coiled spring as the light cut through the darkness; he had to be ready to fight when the beam washed over a huge serpent. It never happened. As far as Leo could tell, they were completely alone. "Looks like Sear isn't home," he muttered. "We better—"

Ara interrupted him with a startled shout. Her hands latched onto his arm as she gasped, "Leo, the floor! It's—" Before she could finish, they were both knocked off-balance as the floor slid out from under them. Leo stepped back, only to discover that there wasn't ground where there had been moments before. He fell a couple feet and landed on a gritty, packed, earthen floor nothing like the smooth stone they'd been standing on. Ara tumbled down next to him, and Leo rose to his knees and instinctively reached out to pull her into his chest. He did his best to shield her as the pair crouched down and waited for the floor (which Leo knew full well by now was actually Sear) to finish its slithering.

The sickening sound of smooth flesh sliding, rasping against the gritty floor finally stopped. Ara began to stand, so Leo let go and did the same. His hand searched out hers and gripped it tightly so they could stay together in the dark room. They backed into a far wall before Leo adjusted his grip around the handle of the flashlight and slowly raised the beam to shed light on the creature before him. Heaps of dark gray coils piled up on themselves and lead to the gigantic head of the serpent, which brushed up against the ceiling of the cavern. Its beady eyes were like inky black pools of gleaming oil under the wash of Leo's light. Its reddish-brown tongue flicked from its mouth, tasting the air.

"Maybe if we stay perfectly still..." Ara suggested hopefully. At the sound of her voice, the snake hissed and spit out a wad of bubbling liquid at the turtles. Leo and Ara yelped and leapt in opposite directions to avoid the acidic venom.

Leo let out a short, bitter laugh as he jumped up from his roll. "Guess that option is out." The snake seemed to weigh it's options before it whipped around and began to slither up the tunnel. "Grab on!" Leo shot forward and gripped the snake tightly, noting in relief that Ara was quick to do the same. He lowered his head and squeezed his eyes shut as roots and bits of rock that were embedded in the earth scraped at his face, his limbs, his shell. The world was a whirlwind of grit and earth and scratching, and then it was over. They burst into the air, into the light. Leo and Ara leapt off of the snake and landed expertly on the ground as they drew their swords at the same time.

Their three captors were still fighting a small army of mutants and animals in the clearing, including the porcupine, several huge mutant insects, and a swarm of pecking, cawing birds. Every creature stopped fighting long enough to leap back as the snake towered over them.

Out of the corner of his eye, Leo saw Tad slap his forehead. "Really? You brought it up here?!"

"He brought us," Leo grunted as he ground his feet firmly in the earth beneath him. This wasn't going to be easy.

"Well, just get rid a' him as fast as ya can!" Fang growled as he yanked a quill from his shoulder. "These things are getting crazier, an' I dunno how much longer we can fend 'em off."

"Sure, no problem," Leo shot back with a glower in the wolf's direction. "We'll get right on that."

"Could you guys at least draw the rest of the creatures away? We can't afford to focus on anything but this thing," Ara said as she weaved between the snake's writhing coils.

"We can try," Fang shouted. "Fall back!" The mutants backed into the trees, and the majority of the vicious animals followed close behind. Leo leapt up towards the snake's head and gripped its neck with all his might. Maybe if he felt along its body he could find a weak spot in the scales.

In the spur of the moment, gripping onto a huge snake with his life in peril, Leo found that he suddenly needed to do something he should have done long ago. "Hey, Ara!"

"What?"

Leo took a deep breath before blurting, "Will you go out with me?"

"Wait, what?!" Leo couldn't see Ara from his position gripping the neck of the snake, but he didn't have to to know that she had frozen mid-move and was gaping at the back of his head in shock. Even the snake stopped thrashing for a moment as if waiting for his next words.

Leo let his hands release the snake's neck so that he could grin at Ara as he dangled upside down by his legs. "You heard me. Asato Ara, will you be my girlfriend?"

"Will I...?" Ara was forced to tear her gaze from Leo as the huge serpent lunged at her. She rolled out of its way just in time, slicing at its scales as she did so. "Really, Leo? You're doing this right now? This isn't exactly the best-eergg-time!"

"Sure it is." Leo spotted a spot of pink skin where a scale must have chipped off, but it was too high up to reach. He needed to get a different angle, so he leapt from the snake, landing neatly beside Ara and helping her fend off the serpent. "There aren't any brothers around to laugh at me, and there's a life-threatening situation to take a little of the pressure away. It's perfect!"

"Thank goodness you aren't proposing. What would you need for that, the end of the world?"

"Ideally."

Ara scoffed even as the snake spit venom towards them. She ducked under the stream and leapt back up close to the bare patch Leo had found on the snake's neck, then plunged her sword deep into the beast's body. It let out an outraged hiss before flopping to the earth, limp.

Ara gingerly stepped around the body of the snake and walked up to Leo. She curled her fingers around the leather straps crossing his chest, pulled him toward her until their foreheads touched. "Alright, Hamato Leonardo," she said, pronouncing his full name somewhat teasingly. "Let's give this a shot."

With that, she tilted her head and kissed him, her mouth soft and warm over his. In that moment, the world seemed to stop turning. Everything around Leo fell away, leaving only him, only Ara, only the wild thumping of his heart and the sensation of melting the took over every inch of his being as blissful warmth spread from his mouth to the rest of his body.

Ara pulled away and moved back a couple steps with an adorably pleased, flustered expression on her face before murmuring, "I guess we better head back."

Leo opened his mouth to respond, but he never got the chance. What happened next was such a confusing blur of events that Leo would later try to piece everything together to make sense of it all. Flashes of memory replaced what should have been one fluid scene, but the images were no less vivid because of it:

Ara's smiling expression suddenly wiped from her face, replaced with one of panicked horror as she gazed at something behind him.

Leo turning to discover that Sear had gotten up, his mouth wide open and about to shoot venom.

Ara slamming into him before he could leap away on his own.

The earthy brown of dirt, taking up his vision and filling his mouth as he involuntarily sucked in a sharp gasp.

The shrill, tortured scream.

Leo scrambled to his feet and frantically located the source of the shout: Ara. She was on the ground, a shoulder coated in the snake's acid venom. Leo wanted nothing more than to rush to her side, but he couldn't with Sear up and violent. Doing so would only get the both of them killed.

Leo spun around to face the threat, and Sear stared at him with those beady black eyes. The orbs that had once held no discernible emotion now glistened with a mocking, satisfied glee. This snake had just tried to kill him, and it might have succeeded if Ara hadn't... if Ara... one of her agonized groans pierced his heart, and at that moment, Leo knew rage. A furious battlecry ripped itself from his throat. He tore his swords back out from their sheaths and threw himself at Sear in one fluid motion, only one intent in mind: to destroy the evil creature once and for all.

Sear opened his mouth in an angry hiss, and Leo didn't miss his chance. He dove forward and up and embedded his katanas deep into the roof of the snake's mouth. Leo rolled away just before it's huge jaws could snap shut, but shut they did. Leo heard the sickening suck of metal passing through flesh as Sear's jaw jammed the weapons deeper into it's head. Leo watched as the snake wobbled unsteadily before collapsing to the ground with a gurgling hiss. It didn't rise, and this time, Leo knew it wouldn't be getting back up. The sharp tips of Leo's katanas glistened from where they had broken completely through the snake's scales, but Leo didn't have the time or stomach to pry open the dead snake's mouth and retrieve his weapons.

Leo turned to Ara, who was curled up on the ground, eyes squeezed shut in agony as she sucked in pained, uneven breaths. Her bicep was a raw, bloody mess. Leo knelt by her side and swallowed hard. He was pretty sure she was in too much pain to get to the cabin on her own, but he needed to get her to Donnie as fast as possible.

Seemingly out of nowhere, Fern appeared beside him. "Let me hel-"

Leo grasped at Ara, urgently pulling her towards himself. "Get away!" His voice was wild, hoarse with worry and rage. "We killed your stupid snake, now keep your end of the bargain and leave us alone!"

"But I just want to-"

"You've done enough!" Leo stood and held Ara's form firmly in his arms. He turned and sprinted toward the farmhouse, deftly maneuvering around logs and low-hanging branches as he made his way through the forest. Ara mumbled unintelligibly before going completely limp, unconscious from the pain. Leo bit back a desperate cry and plowed forward. He'd get her to the farmhouse, and then she'd be okay.

She had to be.