Author's Note: I'm not dead! I'm so sorry about the delay- my computer and I were separated for well over a week, long story short. But, we have been reunited and all is well! Thanks so much for the thoughtful reviews, and I promise that I'm writer's block free. (This chapter is a tad short- I wanted to get something out for you guys, given the delay.)
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Chapter Thirty-Five: Cognitive Shift
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Ooga chucka ooga ooga
Ooga chucka ooga ooga
Ooga chucka ooga ooga...
The song blared out, surprisingly loud given the source.
"Five more minutes Sensei..." Michelangelo waved an arm around in the dark.
...chucka ooga ooga...
"Dude, where is it...?" Mikey groaned and sat up, using both arms to search.
...can't stop this feeling...deep inside of me...
The phone had gotten inside the pillow case...which was down by Mikey's feet, long separated from the actual pillow. April's avatar, drawn-on mustache and all, glowed up at Mikey in the dark. He pouted at it for a few seconds, tempted to let it go to voice mail.
...when you hold me in your arms so tight...
Mikey flopped backward onto the bed again, as he gave in. He might as well get comfortable, since April probably wanted to ask about Donnie, and there just wasn't any way to make that conversation fun, not after today.
He forced a grin anyway. "April! What's u-"
"Mikey." April sounded out of breath, and scared. "Raph's...Raph's passed out. I think we're being chased by the Foot. I...w-we can't move..."
Mikey sprang straight up, his sheets floating up a few feet, carried by the movement.
"I'm getting Leo! Hold on, April!" He raced out of his bedroom, the frantic pace of his legs matched to his thumping heart.
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Someone was calling him.
They were gentle but insistent, dragging his mind up through the layered states of sleep, up out of a deep peace he needed so badly...
...go...away...
Donnie jolted awake, the dark room coming into vivid focus. The peace from an instant before was hardly an impression in the back of his mind now, like a distant dream misting away, and in its place he was hyper aware, panic making his heart race.
"Donnie? It's Leo. You're safe..."
Donatello blinked in the semi-dark. Leo's voice was slightly strained, but then his arm was held at a harsh angle, trapped in a joint lock.
...Oh.
Donatello gently relaxed his grip, a pang of guilt hitting him. "S-sorry..." His voice sounded pinched, fear lingering. He cleared his throat, and tried again. "Sorry, Leo."
Leo smelled like sweat and blood. A sliver of light from the partly open doorway fell across Leo's bed, showing Donatello eyes that glittered with worry. Murmured conversation, too indistinct to hear words, filtered through from the outside.
Leonardo's voice held muted urgency. "I didn't want to wake you up, but...we need your help, Donnie. Raph's been poisoned."
Donatello started moving instantly, as the possibilities ran through his head. "What happened?" Despite his panic induced attack on Leo just now, Donatello's limbs felt like led weights. Every wound throbbed. He couldn't have slept more than an hour or two, tops. The fading adrenaline rush was probably the only thing sustaining him.
Leo picked up Donnie's crutches as he explained. "Two members of the Foot ambushed him and April while they were out getting pizza." Leo got the crutches situated just right, but Donnie didn't try to stand. He had moved too fast, and now the room was spinning just slightly. He sat for a moment as Leo continued. "They started the attack with a dart, aimed at Raph. It only grazed him, but they both wore neko-te. He took a few shallow cuts to his right arm, then passed out maybe ten, fifteen minutes later, tops. I think it's just a sleeping drug..."
Donnie gripped the crutches hard and struggled up to a standing position, interrupting Leo. "Better safe than sorry. Besides, most sedatives are toxic, that's why they work."
He made to step forward, but Leo didn't move to let him pass. "Donnie...?"
Leo paused. His voice dropped to become hardly audible, eyes narrowing in the semi-dark. "April said the assailants were both kunoichi, and...one had red streaks in her hair."
The room suddenly felt stuffy, the air impossible to breathe. Donatello closed his eyes, the urge to hide from Leo overwhelming, but Leo's worried stare stayed with him. The dizzy spell from sitting up too fast returned, making Donnie feel unstable on his feet. He tried taking slow breathes through his nose, desperate to hold things together in front of Leonardo, as panic welled up.
Raph and April made contact with..!?
Until that morning, Donnie had planned to deny anything and everything, to protect his family. If only he could've gotten away with it! He didn't want to see the pain in their eyes, didn't want them to have to think about what he went through. It was bad enough that Leo had seen that video, that Mikey had seen what Fishface had done to his stomach, but this...
Please...no...!
She could have told them. She...would enjoy telling them...
Donnie cringed, physically hunching his shoulders, his head ducking low as his mind blanked out. He kept his eyes squeezed shut as he began to tremble, and in that moment, a wave of self hatred engulfed him.
He needed to go to Raphael, but he couldn't function! He was completely useless!
Leonardo's gentle voice broke into his misery. Each word, hardly more than a whisper, was a life line, a potential rope to pull Donnie out of his paralysis. "The conversation with those kunoichi was short, Donnie. They didn't...I'm pretty sure there wasn't...a lot said." A gentle hand rested on his shoulder, squeezing softly. "You know Raph, he's not much for talking when he has someone's face to beat in..."
Leo paused, and although it took a few moments, Donatello could feel himself pulling back together. He could breath again. He could move. His brother's words were enough, because they had to be.
There was just one thing he had do before going out there, because Leonardo had seen that horrible video. "Leo." Donnie opened his eyes. He needed to see Leo's reaction. "I never...met her." He waited, because this meant everything; whether Leo would give him the power to really function, or if he would cripple him more than any injury to his leg ever could...
Leonardo nodded, an echo of the pain he'd shown Donatello earlier in the lab flashing in his eyes again. "I'll stand by whatever you say out there, Donnie. I promise."
Donnie nodded in return, eyes going to his feet for a moment. He hated that pain in Leo's eyes. He hated that they were even talking about this. Donnie forced himself forward, jaw hardening. He was still angry at himself, at the fear that still lingered, trying to stall him. He needed to get moving. Raphael could be going into anaphylactic shock right now.
As Donatello stepped out of Leo's bedroom door, the conversation from the pit came into better focus. He recognized April's strained voice, pitched lower than usual. Her words gradually became clear, as he made his way down the hall toward the pit.
"...used a Japanese word. What does 'kigh-boots' mean?"
Donnie stopped dead a few feet back from the hallway entrance, with Leo at his heels.
Mikey's eager voice answered. "Oh...I know! That means monster! Why?" Mikey's voice turned uncharacteristically serious. "April...?"
Their conversation faded into the distance as Donatello's world tilted slightly. He was only peripherally aware that Leonardo had gripped his elbow to steady him. Something in his mind had been triggered, prodded, and a vision arose, terrifying, impossible to suppress, like something already there, just waiting to be conjured...
Raphael, stretched out on a cold metal table, shackled in place, hurting and sick to his stomach as he awoke, surrounded by enemies.
Raphael, being tortured and laughed at, afraid and powerless - but mostly furious, because his fury would be the only protection he'd have.
Raphael, alone and trying to sleep through the throbbing pain and the cold ache of the hard metal trapping him, jolted to wakefulness when she came to completely destroy his world...
The real world fell away as debilitating mental pain, like a physical thing, took every ounce of strength Donatello had.
Donatello's eyes slowly focused again, and the lair's bedroom hallway floated, then solidified a few feet away. The smell of sweat, Leo's, was close by, stronger than when he'd woken in the bedroom. Donnie gradually realized he was leaning against his brother, crutches pressed awkwardly against his sides, arms limp, his head bent forward with a cheek resting on Leo's shell. He must have blacked out briefly...?
The sounds around him were too loud, the colors too bright. The conversation from the pit was easy to hear, and Donatello slowly began to listen again. His mind seemed to be on hold, the overwhelming emotion from before the blackout shunted away.
"...the term used? In what context?" It was his father's voice. He sounded angry.
"She..." That was April. She sounded shaken. "She called Donnie that." Her voice was trembling. "She read our lips, Master Splinter. They...know Donnie's a-alive..." April sounded close to tears, guilt lacing her voice. "I'm so sorry..."
As his father curbed the anger in his tone, explaining to April that he didn't blame her, Donatello's mind began to work again, pulling facts together. The Foot had learned he was alive...he was their target. But they had still used a tranquilizer on Raphael. They had tried to kidnap his brother...
Never.
Never.
Never!
Donatello's lips formed a grim line. His strength returned. He gripped his crutches and straightened, gently pushing away from Leo, as he focused all of his attention on that conversation in the pit. A form of intellect Donnie had never employed before whispered to him through that conversation, as a thousand clues he'd ignored all his life snapped into place, made up of tone and inflections and wording.
And he realized something important: the truth of what Harada Jan had done to him was still a secret. His family still didn't know. They couldn't know, because that conversation wouldn't made sense if they did.
Donatello stood straighter. The shame and humiliation he had worn like a shroud for days was being overshadowed by something all consuming; something protective and furious and cold. A single image - Raphael waking to find himself shackled to that metal table - stayed fixed in his mind, held there like a center piece. Donatello started forward again, brushing past Leo, hardly aware of his presence.
Leonardo turned, watching with wide eyes as Donnie went. He didn't follow after. Instead, Leo's hands clenched into helpless fists, and the shock on his face slowly transformed into fear as he stood in the hallway.
Leo replayed the look on Donatello's face from moments back as his brother had slowly tilted forward, the energy draining from his form, until Leo had realized, barely in time, that Donnie wouldn't catch himself.
Donnie had gone somewhere else. Somewhere full of more pain than Leo could make sense of.
Donatello's voice drifted to Leo from the pit. He sounded calm, in control. Donnie was asking questions about Raphael's symptoms. Leo didn't know how he was doing it.
Leo's shoulders felt heavy with the lingering weight of Donatello's form propped against his own. For the first time since seeing the video the Foot had sent, Leonardo doubted his instinct to keep its contents from the others. He played back the look on Donnie's face again, as he had slowly collapsed. A word had triggered it...
Kaibutsu.
That word had never been used in the video.
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AN: Does the title make sense? I hope you enjoyed! I love and appreciate your comments. See you next time!