Rating: Overall story rated T

Disclaimer: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and all related characters belong to Nickelodeon.

Warnings: Overall story contains disturbing imagery such as blood, gore and the like, and disturbing situations.

Summary: The world as they knew it has gone to ruins. The shadows, once their greatest allies, now harbour threats so great it's safer to risk walking in open daylight and Mikey and April will do anything to keep what remains of their family safe; even if it means abandoning home and everything they knew. This story is AU and a collaboration between sampsonknightand Zelgadis55.

Comments, thoughts and concrit are always welcome.

Sekai no Owari

Ch 10

The enticing smell filled the air, making everyone's mouth water in desire. As she checked the drawers, April bit her lip, pondering to herself as Raphael tugged on her hair, letting out gleeful cheers and giggles all the while.

Donnie watched April carefully as she moved from drawer to drawer. At first, he figured she was just getting cutlery but if she'd been living here and was really their friend or even family as Mikey had said more than once, then surely she'd know where things were. "What are you doing?" he eventually asked.

"I'm looking for a safety pin. I couldn't find one in the lab with all the mess," April replied, closing the next drawer in frustration. "There weren't any in the first-aid kit either." She wondered if there was something else she could use instead.

"Try the sewing kit, April," Mikey called over his shoulder as he cooked soup from a can. It was, unfortunately, a lot thinner than he liked but they didn't have much in the way of ingredients he could add. Still, he'd managed to make it smell really good. "Did you lose the button on your pants or something? You have no idea how glad I am that that's not something we've ever had to worry about."

April rolled her eyes, "No but unless you want to place newspaper all over the floor I need safety pins."

"What for?"

"Your foot," April reminded him, snickering as she pointed to the munchkin in her arms.

"Oh yeah, right," Mikey grimaced in disgust.

"His foot needs a safety pin?" Leo tilted his head in confusion, staring intently at it. "Did he break it?"

Donnie sighed, his face in his hand.

"My poor innocent foot needs protecting and a magical safety pin is the perfect protective shield," Mikey explained in complete seriousness before pulling a face as he remembered yet again what he stepped in yesterday. He continued stirring the pot. "But Ape? What are you using for a nappy?"

She shrugged, "Some old shirt, that had some scribble on it saying Silver Sentry."

"No!" Mikey gasped as he whipped around to stare accusingly at her. "No way, April! I thought you knew all about protecting a guy's comic merchandise!" he protested loudly in horror.

"Oh, is that what it was? And there I thought," April innocently pulled out a bunched up shirt from her pocket, proof she'd only been teasing the poor, beleaguered turtle, though she didn't show it properly to him yet, "the signature was just something you placed on it alongside some fantasy character you created to amuse yourself."

"Do you know what I had to go through to get that shirt signed? Wait, you do, since you're the one that had to line up for hours since Leo wouldn't let me be seen in public, even at a convention where everyone dresses in cosplay!" As soon as he said that, Mikey froze. Then he turned and stared mournfully at Leo, heart aching painfully. He never thought he would miss Leo's overprotectiveness but now...

… now he'd have given anything to have it back. Even if Leo and everyone else did treat him as an innocent little kid incapable of dealing with the harder stuff at times.

Leo blinked at him in confusion before turning to Donnie, "Are they arguing? Did I do something wrong?"

"No Leo, you didn't," Donnie replied softly, remembering the video with Leo and Raph arguing just before the incident that led to this mess. "They're just being adults. Or at least she is. Mikey seems incapable of being one."

"Rude! I am so an adult too!" Mikey protested with a mock glare at his former favourite brother. "April's just being more of one! You know, because she's..." he suddenly trailed off and quickly turned back to the stove, stirring the pot purposefully once more lest he go too far and make her go through with her threat against his prized shirt.

"Because I'm what, Mikey?" April narrowed her eyes at him, enjoying watching him squirm ever so slightly. When he didn't reply, she continued. "You know something, Mikey? It appears that Donnie always has been insightful and since he tends to be correct with such observations, I doubt age has anything to do with, it's just your maturity level. I mean, if we had to sum it up, Donnie would be more adult than you, even on your good days, probably Leo, too." April grinned, then hit him with the shirt so he would see it wasn't his precious signed shirt, as she would never actually do that to him. It was a present from her after all.

"Ooh that's just cold," Mikey retorted good-naturedly, crouching down to pick it up from where it fell. He looked at the shirt carefully, then balled it back up and threw it back. Turning back to the stove, he leant over the pot to study it before turning off the heat. Then, with a flourish, he deftly grabbed the bowls he'd already set nearby and began ladling the watered-down soup. "Do you know where the sewing box is?" he asked, glancing back to April.

"We had a sewing box?" April asked, "Wait, we do? Come on, when was someone going to say something to me? Especially after I ripped my pants last week in the crotch?"

Mikey sniggered loudly as he set the ladle in the now-empty pot.

Before he knew it she slapped him on the back of the head gently.

"Ow! April!"

"Seriously, that isn't funny. I don't have that many clothes to spare here and no way am I wandering around naked the way you guys do!"

"Why mess with perfection by covering it up?" Mikey grinned. "Anyway, Leo was way too embarrassed to speak up and as for Raph, well he wouldn't let me tell! He threatened me if I said anything. As for Donnie, dunno if he even noticed!"

"Leave me out of this," Donnie muttered petulantly, looking away from everyone. He hated that they were talking about him when he couldn't remember any of that.

"Well, it would be less embarrassing if you told me that we had a needle and thread that wasn't medical equipment and let me fix my clothes…" April crossed her arms then looked down at Raph before eyeing Mikey, "Why would Raph threaten you about that? That makes no sense."

Mikey grinned self-consciously and picked up bowls of hot soup, carrying them to the table so she wouldn't hit him again. "That's something you'll have to ask him when he's older again." He placed a bowl in front of Donnie and Leo. "Careful, it's hot," he cautioned with another snicker, sensing April's displeasure.

"Uh-huh..." April shook her head, going toward the end of the table and placing Raph down to finally get this child a diaper; it wasn't anything fancy but it would do the trick for now. As she laid him there, she blinked in surprised, "Um, I always thought it was inside..."

"What was inside?" Mikey asked, grabbing the remaining two bowls and placing them at his and April's seats.

Coughing, she shifted uncomfortably, "You know um... your boy part?" She decided to make her question more G rated with Leo sitting there.

Mikey canted his head in confusion as he stared at her. "What are you talking about? What do you mean inside?"

"You know… Come on Mikey, Leo is five now and I'm not going to use the adult wording for the organ. It's out, okay? I'm just surprised," April admitted, embarrassed.

"Leo might be five but he still knows what a penis is," Donnie frowned, leaning over with Mikey to see what April was indicating. "Besides, it's not out."

"So no problem!" Mikey added cheerfully as Leo looked back and forth between them all, bewildered. Mikey sat back down. He picked up his spoon and dipped it into the soup to blow on it.

Donnie sighed and also sat, "I really don't understand why humans are so coy about body parts. It's natural."

"I'm not being coy, it's just odd when you're talking about one of your friends that's all. Besides, if it's not out, then what is this other than his penis! There I said it. Are you happy now? Geez! Was just being mindful when it came to my vocabulary around a young child." April crossed her arms in embarrassment.

Mikey and Donnie exchanged looks and burst out laughing.

"Next thing we know, you'll start calling it number one and number two," Mikey joked when his laughter subsided, causing them to crack up all over again.

Narrowing her eyes, April huffed, making sure both were pierced with her normally paralysing glare which this time only made them laugh all the harder.

"Ohmygod! I can't breathe!" Mikey gasped desperately, even as poor Leo looked on in confusion, wondering what was so funny.

Throwing her free arm up in the air, April growled, "Fine whatever, then please explain what this is! I'm tired of games and I'd like to know it's not some odd growth!"

"It's... his... tail," Mikey gasped between laughs, struggling to stay upright in his seat.

Trying to calm down because it really wasn't as funny as it seemed, Donnie smiled tightly and nodded wordlessly, knowing he'd crack up all over again if he dared try to speak.

Giving them a blank stare, her anger was gone in an instant, "No, seriously, what is it? You guys don't have tails."

"Yes, we do!" Leo jumped up. He whirled around, showing his backside and letting his tail curl down to be seen. "See!" he wiggled it with his butt in front of Donnie's face.

"Sure, we... do," Mikey answered breathlessly, gripping the table desperately as he grinned up at April. "We just learnt a long time ago, like, when we were little kids, to... tuck them out of sight."

"Leo!" Donnie whined in annoyance, pushing him aside. "Get your butt out of my face! God, I forgot how immature you could be when you were little!"

Leo stuck his tongue out at Donnie and sat back down, fiddling with his spoon as he gawked in horror at his horrible looking soup.

Calmer now, Mikey smiled at April and explained further. "Our tails are really sensitive so it doesn't take much to hurt them and when you have certain brothers who liked to pull them, you learn fast to hide them out of immediate reach."

April didn't comment, just ignored them as she concentrated on fixing the makeshift diaper on Raph. Once done she sat down, pulling the last tin of canned pears close, dreading that they'd have to go back out for more food again so soon. Even more desperately now since they didn't have anything suitable for small children and babies.

Placing one slice of pear in the child's hand, he looked at it in curiosity. It wasn't until she aided his hand to his mouth that the infant churred at the taste, shoving his fist into his mouth.

The amusement having died down, at last, Mikey looked apologetically at his two younger brothers sitting at the table. "I'm sorry the soup's kinda thin but food's really hard to come by. We gotta make what little we have last."

Donnie shrugged, covering up his disappointment. "It's okay. We're used to not having good food a lot anyway."

At the answer, Mikey felt at once relieved at the understanding and horrified as he remembered how when they were younger it was also quite hard to get decent supplies, forcing them to stretch out what little they had and often going hungry. It was a wonder their growth hadn't been stunted.

Or maybe it had and they just hadn't realised. After all, there were no other mutant turtles around they could compare with.

-:-

The calming silence finally settling over the dust of the most bizarre and stressful day, April slumped into the couch, her legs stretched out over the coffee table.

"I feel so old…" she whimpered, closing her eyes. After arguing for what felt like hours with Leo to go to bed, she now felt guilty over how terrified he appeared to be when in the end she put her foot down, ordering him to go to bed and stop complaining. Donnie, at least, seemed more willing and as for Raph, he was done after he had scarfed down five pieces of pears and drank most of her soup.

"I didn't want to be the one to say it," Mikey said unthinkingly, falling into the other chair. He knew how she felt though, especially after that first fight with getting Leo to eat his soup. For a time, he'd demanded more crackers instead but Mikey had given him the last of the crackers before they'd found and met up with April, Donnie and Raph all those hours ago.

April shot him a look to warn him, then continued as if he'd never spoken, "How in the world did your father ever manage to raise the four of you? I doubt Leo wasn't the only one this much a pain... Though I have to admit I never imagined how much a handful Leo was. He turned out polar opposite; I would have thought Raph would have been the trouble maker, considering how he can be at times."

Mikey baulked a moment at the wordless warning then chuckled tiredly. "Leo was always a perfect angel when Master Splinter was around. Soon as his tail was turned though? Man! He was the worst of us and somehow we'd be the ones to get caught and never him. Raph and I were always openly mischievous and that just made Master Splinter believe it was us causing the trouble all the more."

"Ouch, did he ever figure the truth out?" April asked curiously. She never knew about this side of them; there were some parts of their lives she had to admit they didn't talk about much. This one she could easily believe because Leo would be embarrassed for sure.

Mikey shrugged and laid his head back against the chair, "Dunno, probably. It was always hard to pull one over on Master Splinter for very long. One day when we were seven or eight, Leo just did this, like total turn around and became the stickler for the rules we all grew to love and be annoyed by. There had to be a reason for that, right? Only the rest of us never knew it."

"Well, I guess we will never know now, too bad," April smiled wistfully. "It would be an interesting tale for sure…" Biting her lip she sighed, "Talking about growing up… we don't know if this can be reversed at the moment and neither Donnie nor I have the expertise to try to fix things but either way what we have isn't good enough for any of us, Leo and Raph in particular. They need the right nutrients for their growing bodies and who knows, even if we do figure out to turn them back to normal the lack of nutrients now could affect their overall health even if returned to normal."

Mikey nodded. Suddenly serious, he sat up straight and crossed his legs beneath him on the chair as he looked over at April, "I don't really want to think about the what if this can't be reversed but ignoring that, you and I both know our food situation is really bad." He sighed as he thought back to the food stores. "Even if I stretch it out as far as I can, it's not enough to last even a week and you and I can't afford to go without either or we won't have the strength to look after Raph and Leo. Donnie, he can at least help and fight if need be but..."

"But?" April raised an eyebrow.

"Donnie didn't really hit his fighting stride until he was almost thirteen. He always had his head too much in his books before that. It wasn't until... the rest of us got into trouble in the junkyard one time while we were there without Master Splinter and it was up to him to bail us out before he started working harder on his ninjutsu." Mikey bit his lower lip, not that he was really one to talk at that age or even for several years later, considering how he never took it seriously early on either.

"So that isn't an option then... Mikey, we might have to consider our previous idea. We need to do it or we won't survive. Donnie is old enough to watch Raph and Leo for at least three hours in the morning with the lair on lockdown and him with a Shell-cell to call us as we scavenge one of the nearby apartment buildings. We would have better luck, providing they haven't all been wiped clean already and on the way, there were a few convenience stores that still had baby formula and victims," April suggested, knowing it wasn't any better a solution but it was better than slowly starving to death.

"Victims?" Mikey asked curiously, screwing up his face in distaste. Then he glanced nervously towards the main exit of the lair where sounds of scratching and moaning outside could still be heard.

April gave him a "Huh?" then chuckled. "Oh, sorry that is what I use to call children vitamins. Victims because they were shaped as Flintstones and I used to bite the heads off them first."

Mikey snickered. "What other monstrous acts did you perform as a kid?" he asked cheekily.

Shrugging, she laid back further, "Sorry, Mikey, I don't kiss and tell."

"What were you kissing?" Mikey asked in over the top disbelief, a merry twinkle in his eye.

Letting out a sigh, she stood up, "I swear, out of them all, I still can't believe you're the more exhausting of the bunch... and you say you're an adult."

"And how many years is it you've known me now?" Mikey countered.

"Too many," April snickered. Suddenly she paused, looking at the door that she knew could withstand a tank. "Mikey, we have to go out together, we have no other choices. We can't risk exposing Donnie to this more then he already has been. I've seen his eyes, the confusion, the frustration of knowing yet not remembering, it's tormenting him. It will only be worse if he saw what the world is like... how..." April turned bitter, "how right he is to hate humans for they are worse than the monsters outside that door…" April trailed off as her voice became very cold and distant. "How disgusting they are... and…" With that she stood and walked away, heading towards the lab; it would be best if she evaluated the damage outside and check to see how many zombies had since congregated, how many would need to be cleared for them to even leave again.

Luckily, Donnie had set up a remote-controlled beacon away from the entrance to lure them if too many were close. At least that gave them a chance to more easily kill them while their backs were turned early in the day.

Mikey bounced up from his chair and followed her. "For the record, Ape, Donnie never hated humans, none of us did. We were scared of them, there's a big difference. We were taught to be scared of letting them see us from an early age because of the threat of them capturing and experimenting on us. We spent our whole lives hiding and being warned we had to hide or the worst would happen. You know, Master Splinter really wasn't happy with us when we brought you home that first time, though luckily he soon realised you were different. You wouldn't believe the serve we got from him before you woke up."

Turning around, she shook her head, "That was different because that was then! I'm not saying I would be a threat to you now if I meet you more recently… but… he was right about the fact that the worst could happen... Mikey you weren't there, you didn't see..." her eyes stung as they became suddenly blurry. "I saw them... they strung up that poor child up by his ankles, as bait to lure the dead and watched the poor kid be eaten alive! The freaks ripped that child apart as he cried and screamed for his mother! Then the bastards… they raped her not long after, getting off on it!" April's body shook as she remembered the horror and how she couldn't do a thing to stop it. Leo pulled her back saying there were just too many. Too many of which, the humans with guns or the zombies, she never asked. The only other person with them that day was Donnie and he never spoke of it after nor argued with Leo's order to go back home, only saying that staying out longer was too risky.

"When... was that?" Mikey asked, horrified. Why hadn't anyone mentioned this to him? He needed to know too! So he'd know what to expect, so he'd... he swallowed unhappily. It wasn't something he really wanted to know about but... but he needed to... and he was sick and tired of being kept in the dark about things by his brothers who thought they were protecting him. 'Well, guess that won't be a problem anymore,' he thought sadly, remembering what happened to them while he and April fought to get back home.

"Just over two weeks ago..." April trailed off, "When Donnie wanted some supplies for his work."

Mikey frowned, remembering when everyone had returned sullen and gone off their own separate ways. Leo to his room to meditate, Donnie to his lab, actually locking the door for once and April, he didn't know where. He hadn't even been able to get them to come to dinner that night.

"Mikey, you should go get some rest. I'll double-check the monitors before heading to bed myself." April started to walk again, not wanting to speak about it anymore; that day she'd lost what little hope she had left for humanity and part of her, though she never told anyone, wished Donnie wouldn't find a cure because she wasn't sure they even worth saving. Not when it seemed like all that was left were the scum.

For a moment, Mikey was poised to argue, he'd had something he needed to bring up but their conversation had sidetracked. Instead, he found himself nodding. "Okay, I am pretty beat. Plus my head still hurts so hopefully, some sleep will help," he agreed softly. "But April, I don't want you to hide things from me anymore because we're family in all but name and blood. Besides, who else have you got to talk to about stuff?"

She didn't reply, unable to bring herself to say sure or okay because she was hiding something else from him... something she only knew half of the story about. Staring at the lab that was only feet away, she didn't enter, waiting for him to leave first.

"But before I do go to bed, I need to go close the hatch to the emergency exit. It would suck if somehow the other door was opened..." Mikey said, wincing at the thought of the lake above draining into their home. "And if we can, tomorrow, I want to see if we can work out why the pump wouldn't work when I pressed the button while we were inside it. You never know when we might need to use it again."

Nodding, she didn't complain, just watched over her shoulders as he made his leave. Once out of sight she sighed. How long could she keep this from him? Was the time right yet or would it never be?

-:-

Donnie lay in his unfamiliar bed, unable to sleep. He was extremely tired after such a long day, yet despite only getting an hour of sleep earlier in the day, it eluded him. He hadn't fought against going to bed when Mikey and April, he still had a hard time accepting she was their friend despite all the evidence to the contrary, had insisted that he, Leo and Raph go to bed sometime after dinner. He sighed, listening to Raph fussing in a nearby room as the human woman tried coaxing him to sleep while Mikey read Leo a bedtime story from some comic he'd grabbed.

Trouble was, not only did he normally have a hard time finding sleep due to his racing mind but right now, he was restless and troubled on top of that. More than Leo or Raph, he understood what had happened to them, just not the how or why and that frustrated him incredibly.

Donnie rolled over onto his other side. April had wanted him to share a bedroom with Leo and Raph for their sake, but that was the last thing he wanted right now. He needed his space to think and he didn't want to deal with brothers he was feeling unusually estranged from. To some degree, he'd always felt different, like he didn't quite fit in and now he felt the difference more keenly than ever. This time, however, no one could reassure him that he wasn't so different because he was. Leo was unable to notice and Mikey... now Mikey was an adult while he was stuck years in the past.

He'd seen the transformation on the footage in his lab and yet... Donnie bit his lip. Simply seeing it wasn't enough; he had to know how it happened. Just then, he heard Mikey leave Leo's room and head for April's, asking if she wanted a drink or anything else. When Mikey left the room moments later, Donnie decided he'd had enough of laying there uselessly.

Throwing back his blankets, Donnie tiptoed to the door and glanced out, listening intently. He may not have been the best fighter among his brothers but there was nothing wrong with his stealth. Many a night he'd crept to his lab to read without his father being any the wiser and tonight he intended to do the same.

Not long later, Donnie was entering what he was told was his lab. Skirting around the broken glass and dried blood on the floor, he headed to the security computer. He sat in front of it and stared in frustration. He remembered the password April had used but that wasn't the problem. The problem was that this was specifically set up as the security station and didn't hold any notes or records he may have kept before.

'I know Donnie has cameras set up in here so he can record what he does.'

Or would it have?

Quickly waking up the computer, he clicked on the icons he remembered April clicking on and typed in the password.

Soon he had the replay of past days playing and watched as his older self worked in frustration, trying to find a cure he didn't seem hopeful in finding.

-:-

Frustrated over not learning as much as he'd hoped - his older self had mentioned ingredients and amounts used but not so much what exactly he was doing and worse, it was far beyond his current knowledge - Donnie decided to take a break from that and switch to the views the monitors currently showed. To his surprise, he saw Mikey and April talking tiredly in the living room, though there were no microphones to pick up what was being said. He watched for a while, taking in the tired, yet relaxed in each other's presence body language, and then started checking other cameras, exploring the lair in that manner. After looking through all the interior cameras, Donnie found the exterior cameras and with curiosity over what was outside eating him – he didn't really believe April's ridiculous story about zombies – Donnie switched the view to the one just outside what he guessed was the exit Leo, Raph and himself had earlier tried to leave via.

To his horror, he saw something that he'd only seen in Mikey's horror movies in the past, only, these 'people', if you could call them that, were worse. The detail beyond gruesome, Donnie could see the things crawling or walking around, chunks of flesh hanging loose in some cases, an eyeball hanging by thread in another, broken off limbs and when he zoomed in in utter horror, maggots crawling, eating away at the rotting flesh.

Suddenly an unimpressed voice sounded behind him, making him jump. "What are you doing up, Donatello? I thought you were asleep?"

-:-