Alright... so this is a little later than I'd hoped but I couldn't get it to sound right.

Here we go!

PS: Don't expect anything for at least two weeks.

Chapter 36

Broken?

"OOOOOOO! He's in big trouble!"

"Yes he was."

Gwen screeched loudly and kicked at the intruder. "You brought them here, didn't you?! We told you not to come back!"

The man holding her looked more than a little confused. "You want to stay with these freaks –"

She kicked at him again. "Don't you dare call them freaks!!"

He stared at her in bewilderment. "But… you're under a spell – we can help you to escape…"

"The only person I want to escape from is you! Now let us go!"

The red haired girl hissed at him like an angry goose. "You pathetic excuse for a man! You are the one who attacked our home and you're saying someone else is a monster?!"

Faced with two very angry girls, the man released them and raised his hands in surrender. "Whoa. So you guys aren't under a spell?"

"NO!"

"Not anymore!"

This immediately attracted both Gwen and the guy's attention. "What?"

"Who are you, anyway?" Gwen wanted to know. "I've never seen you around here and you don't look like an intruder." She gave the man a deadly look.

The girl shuffled her feet. "I'm a maid in the castle."

"Maid? There were no maids – just the… the… Were you the sand?" Gwen couldn't believe what she was suggesting. But it did make sense – in a weird, convoluted sort of way.

"Ummm… yes. You see, when Prince Donatello –"

"Oh my God!" Gwen cried. "DONNY!"

Without another word, she spun on her heel and sprinted away from the two.

This left Casey Jones standing confused as hell in the dark with a girl he didn't know. Unsure of anything else to say, he turned to the girl, "Uh… so… my name's Casey Jones. What's yours? Can you tell me what's going on here?"

"Well –"

**********************************

It was funny. When she had fought Raul before, Julietta had never known him to be so skilled. In the friendly sparring matches he had been a bit of a klutz and screw up.

Go figure, now that she had to fight him for real, he was an expert warrior. He fought with a curving scimitar in one hand and a short stabbing knife in the other. She quickly learned that she could not lock swords with him, as he had the nasty tendency to stab at her whenever she got too close. The only way to kill him would be to slash at him from a distance, but his reflexes were too good. She could throw a sword at him and hope it connected but that would leave her vulnerable.

What the hell was she going to –

Whoops. Dodging that slash would be a fabulous idea!

She fell to her knees and kicked viciously at his legs, only to have to quickly draw them back in again to avoid his blade trying to cut them off. She jumped upright and circled her opponent warily. He didn't like Raph did; while Raph was usually pretty good about not using his superior strength to crush her – not that he ever pulled any punches – Raul was obviously not above doing whatever he had to do to win. He definitely wasn't the chivalrous type.

He slashed at her throat, but she turned away quickly.

She needed a plan. Now, preferably.

He followed up his knife strike with his longer ranged sword, forcing her to back up. This was made difficult by the fact that he had just kicked at her hard in the stomach. She went down hard.

He bore down hard on her – and this was no dream. There was no wolf to save her here.

She drew in her long legs and kicked upwards hard. An agonizing pain shot through her leg even as she kicked him off her and over her head.

Julietta drew herself back to her feet, grimacing at the feel of blood trickling down her right leg. The servants had been right when they had forced these things on her – without them she'd be missing a leg (not that she had any intention of telling them that). As it was, she was in a terrible amount of pain and she had to use one of her kopis blades to lever herself to her feet.

Okay. That was it. No nice girl.

Time to, as Raph said: Release the bitch.

Ignoring the torture of her leg and the burning in her hands, she lunged forward, parrying his sword with one hand, and locking the hilt of her other sword with the hilt of his knife. Raul immediately began ruthlessly pushing down, his mangled face inches from hers.

Now or never.

She made to spit in his face and when he averted his face, she twisted her wrists and the hilts of her swords. His weapons spun out of his hands and when he staggered back in shock, she cut out his legs with graceful slashes of her blades. His back hit the dirt and his eyes were wide with terror.

Julietta did not loosen her grip on her swords as she slammed her injured leg down on his chest. Ramming one of her kopis down into ground right besides his neck, she grabbed the front of his shirt and dragged his face up towards her.

"Now, you bastard, you'd better listen, because you aren't getting' another chance. You are going to leave here. You are going to leave and never come back. If I so much as catch one sight of your face ever again, I will kill you with me bare hands. Now get out."

She released him roughly and watched as he got up and staggered away. Groaning, she turned away and began limping away to find Raph.

The young gypsy had barely made it five paces when she sensed something coming up behind her.

She spun around.

What happened next came in strange flashes.

Glint of silver.

Broken nose.

A tiny, shriveled figure.

Her kopis stabbing forward.

Blood spilling over her fingers.

A lot of blood.

She found herself on her back, pinned under Raul's dead weight, her kopis protruding from his back.

"Julietta! Child, what are you doing?"

Julietta paused in her struggle to lift the body off of her in order to peer around to see who is was who had spoken. She got quite a shock.

"Granma?"

********************************

Angela traded blows with the Princess Karai. This girl was an incredible swordswoman. Her strikes were faster than any snake's.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked, pushing the intruder off of her.

"You have dishonored my country!" the young woman snarled, snapping out a spin kick as she stepped away. "You'll pay with your life!"

"Of course," Angela groaned, blocking the kick. It was going to be a long night.

*****************************

Zoey darted through the battlefield. Except now it could no longer be called a battlefield; most of the invaders were running for the gates and away from the newer streams of warriors that were randomly appearing out of the shadows.

Not that she was really paying any attention to any of this, she was more concerned with finding Mikey.

She had to make a quick detour around a huge metal… thing – was this thing supposed to be a person? – trying to crush something (it looked kinda like a person) several feet off the ground.

Unimportant.

Except –

BANG

The metal thing exploded.

It felt as though one of the horses had hit her square in the back, throwing her off her feet. She flew through the air and managed to twist through the air and land on her feet. And it would have been alright if something very solid and tangible hadn't hit her in the spine, bowling her over.

She landed on her front and skidded forward painfully, only to be stopped when a large stone fell onto her foot with a dull – and very, very, painful – thunk.

The sound she made cut through the air like a knife.

It was only when she managed to shake herself out of the terrible fog of anguish, did she realize that the stone was pinning her foot to the ground and too heavy for her to move on her own.

Zoey Freeman was trapped.

****************************

This newest explosion stopped and redirected Gwen as suddenly and effectively as a leash yanking at her neck. She instantly changed directions and ran towards the blast. That did not sound like any of the others – it sounded like anyone too close to that was going to die.

What had happened Donny?

"Donny?" she called.

The dust from the explosion obscured everything to the point that even the fires glowing and twisting through the air couldn't pierce through its haze. She could see nothing and was forced to rely on sound. "Donny? Can you hear me?"

All she heard was a familiar groan.

***************************

Evelina braced her skinny legs and helped her granddaughter hoist off the corpse. "Come with me, Julietta! We need to get out of here!"

Julietta wasn't in the mood for giving explanations. "What the hell are you doing here?"

The old woman moved like lightning.

Whap

"OW!"

"Don't you use that language with me, young lady!"

The two women – one elderly clutching a staff with blades on both ends and another young one with double kopis blades – stared at each for a long moment.

"We need to leave before the demons –"

She gritted her teeth. "Don't call them demons!"

Julietta had never seen her grandmother speechless but she was too angry to really notice. "Why does everyone keep callin' 'em that?!"

"What do you mean? Isn't that one right there?"

She turned.

The huge man called Hun was standing stock still, staring at the sais protruding from his neck, blood spurting out even as he fell. About five feet away from him knelt Raphael, yanking a huge sword from his plastron with one hand while the other stayed stubbornly in the throwing position. The blade he was removing from his chest was covered with blood.

The same blood pouring from the hole in his chest and down his body.

The wild, angry look on his face did not change even as he collapsed over onto his shell.

Julietta could not remember ever screaming as loudly as she did right then.

************************************

"Hello?" Zoey hissed into the dusty haze. "Is somebody there?"

She didn't want to call out too loudly for fear of attracting an enemy.

An enemy.

Zoey had never had enemies until she had come here. But then… she had never met anyone like Mikey before she came here.

He was worth it.

"Is that you, Z?"

Her heart lifted. "Mikey?"

"Yeah, it's me! Where are you?"

"I'm over here!"

"I can't see you, the fog's too thick! Can you come towards me?"

"No! I'm stuck!"

"Okay, hold on, I'm coming!"

For the next minute, Zoey sat helplessly pinned under the stone slab, chattering away so Mikey could follow her voice. Finally, she spotted a figure coming at her through the thick dust. "Mikey? Is that you?"

His voice floated back to her. "Yeah! I think I can see you!"

She let go of the rock and waved her arms vigorously through the air. "I'm over here! Over here! No! Your left! Your other left, silly!"

"I see you! Hang on!"

And quite suddenly her arms froze in the air. That wasn't Mikey.

That wasn't even a turtle.

Or a rat.

It was a human.

Zoey fumbled desperately to get to her feet and, failing that, tried to find something to use as a weapon. Her fingers closed around a stone.

And then, all at once, the imposter was kneeling beside her.

"Z? Are you okay?"

This was… what did Gwen call it? Surreal. Yeah. That was it.

This was the boy from the portrait in the main hall.

She stared at him, baffled. He had Mikey's voice… but… but… he was… human!

"Who are you?"

The young man drew back a bit. "It's me, Z! Doncha recognize me?"

She could only shake her head no.

He laughed. "C'mon, Z! You know me! How many other talking turtles do you know?"

"You're not a turtle."

And he wasn't. He had the sun-bleached blond hair that was lighter at the top than at the bottom. His bright, crystal blue eyes – Mikey's eyes! – gleamed in a tanned face with freckles sprinkled across his nose and cheeks. The smile that was slowly fading was the biggest and best she had ever seen, framed by cute dimples.

He laughed weakly. "Whoa, I must be covered in more dust than I thought –"

And he looked down at himself.

His eyes bugged out.

He ran his tanned human, five-fingered, hands through his wiry blond hair, across his face, down his chest, and along his lean legs. "I… I'm… human again…"

They spent several full seconds staring at his human body, covered in sturdy brown trousers, thick leather boots, and a white shirt. Around his forehead was a familiar orange bandana and at his belt were two nunchuks.

Could this be true?

Something clicked.

"What do you mean, 'human again'?"

Mikey was still examining his changed form and did not answer immediately. "A while ago, that guy the Shredder cursed me and my brothers. He said the only way to break the spell was if a girl…"

His freckled cheeks went pink as he trailed off.

"So… you're really Mikey?"

He grinned at her and tugged her bangs in a very Mikeyesque way. "Yup! Um… you said you were stuck?"

"What? Oh yes! This rock is crushing my foot."

"Okay, hold on." He grabbed the stone and heaved.

Zoey gasped as the rock ground against her injured foot. "That hurts!"

His hand closed gently on her knee. "Zoey? I'm gonna try to lift this thing of you. You move your foot as fast as you can, okay?"

"Okay."

He braced his shoulders and heaved. The rock lifted.

She dragged her foot away.

Mikey let it drop and it fell with a solid thump.

"Thanks," she said, trying to stand.

"Whoa!" He caught her as her leg gave beneath her and she sagged against his chest.

It was strange to lean against yielding flesh instead of hard plates. She ran a wondering hand over his chest.

And blinked as his hand closed over hers.

She looked up nervously. He was still taller than her.

His eyes became rather confused as he scooped her off her feet. "Ummm… we'd better find the others."

But Zoey had waited long enough.

She reached up and grabbed the young man firmly and tugged his lips down to hers. It was unlike anything she had ever felt before, especially when she tilted her head a little to the side.

On the whole, it felt pretty damn good.

NEXT!!!!