Author's Note:

To the Guest: I'm happy you're interested! Thanks a lot for reviewing!

Errance

Raphael's horse snorted as it made its way through the fumes. They rose from holes in the basalt ground, and prevented the group of travelers from fully seeing the view. It was still possible to guess the edges of the giant black mountain they were climbing.

From time to time, a glowing red light underground betrayed the presence of lava.

It was Raphael's first time near an active volcano.

This journey had encompassed many a first time for the teenager: his first time far from the oasis, his first time into a forest, his first time in earthbender territory…

His first time trying to stop an adult from causing a disaster.

When Stockman had said that Bishop had come to him for digging purposes, Raphael had immediately had a nasty feeling about what was going to be exhumed.

He might not be as smart as his brother Donatello, but Bishop's interest for the Shredder's resting place hadn't gone unnoticed by him. Besides, Stockman had sort of confirmed it the night before. The earthbender had been talking to Bishop, thinking the others asleep, and his words still haunted Raphael…

I'll bring you to the ice part in no time. I sure hope you'll know what to do next.

Bishop had hushed him, and Raphael had lain very still, making sure that his breathing matched the rhythm of a sleeping person's.

Was the Shredder really frozen inside the well, like the legend said? Did Bishop seriously think that exhuming him was a good idea?

Bishop was mad. It was the only conclusion Raphael could come to. What if the legendary waterbender wasn't dead, or what if he was but had trapped the well?

People risked being hurt.

One of Raphael's brothers was already missing, he wasn't going to let Bishop endanger the two others. Or his mother. Or his uncle. Or his friends.

Or his father, although Raphael was still pretty mad at Yoshi for keeping important information from him.

So Raphael had taken the only possible decision.

When the time was right, he would stop Bishop.

The party stopped near the entrance of a tunnel. Sculpted rocks framed it, depicting dragons of past legends. Raphael barely paid attention to them, focusing on Bishop and what he would do next.

Stockman sighed and untied his wheelchair from his horse. Had Donatello been here, he would certainly have been captivated by the cunning of Stockman's designs. The man had a definite affinity for engineering and mechanical works. Raphael didn't know if it was the case for every earthbender or if Stockman was special, although he leaned towards the last possibility.

"Couldn't you have stopped there before you fetched me?" Stockman complained.

Bishop didn't bother answering and dismounted. "I'll go alone. I shouldn't be long; wait for me here."

He headed for the tunnel and disappeared inside.

"Take your time," Stockman grumbled. "I always love waiting on an active volcano."

Raphael dismounted and stretched his legs. Bishop's man had scattered to take a break; apparently they didn't think that any danger threatened them here.

Apart from the obvious one of the giant volcano, of course; but there wasn't anything they could have done if the volcano erupted, apart from running away as fast as possible.

Raphael heard Slash talk to Stockman.

"What is this place?"

"Why are you asking me? It's a sacred place for you fire buddies, that's all I know."

"I wonder what Bishop expects to find inside," Raphael said detachedly.

"Help for our next task, I guess." Stockman began oiling his wheels.

"You know what it is?" Slash watched him work, fascinated. "He didn't tell us."

"Then I'm not going to, either." Stockman smiled at Slash. After a rocky start, he had grown to appreciate the boy's attention. "Let's just say that you're going home."

Slash's eyes lit up at the news. For his part, Raphael felt his heart race. Another confirmation of what he thought.

It also meant that whatever Bishop expected to find inside, it was the last thing he needed before their little trip was complete - and that without it, there would be no more plans of waking the Shredder.

Raphael took in his surroundings. Nobody was guarding the entrance. Stockman and Slash were deep in a conversation, and the fumes regularly hid them from Raphael's view.

Which meant he was hidden from their view.

Careful to be as silent as he could, Raphael sneaked inside the tunnel.

Unlike the caves of his home, this tunnel was hot. Raphael would rather not have added the heat of a lighting flame, but once the entrance hole had disappeared, it had become pitch black and Raphael didn't want to fall into a crevasse.

His fears proved to be unfounded, though, as the tunnel was perfectly smooth, without crevasses or holes.

It went down into the depths of the volcano, and although Raphael couldn't see it, he could feel flows of lava not far from him.

Which was a slightly unsettling feeling.

Not one second too soon, Raphael arrived at two black columns marking the entrance of a red-glowing room. Inside, a narrow path enabled people to reach a platform floating on a lake of lava.

And on that path proudly stood Bishop, his back to Raphael as he talked to three women in golden robes sitting behind an altar on the platform.

Raphael quickly extinguished his flame and hid behind one the columns in order to watch.

"Nothing threatens my country without paying the price." Bishop took a step towards the altar. "I'm ready."

"Absorbing another bender's power also comes with a price," the first women said.

"I'm willing to pay it."

Raphael clenched his fists so hard that his fingernails scratched his skin. Absorb? Bishop was even crazier than he had thought!

"The spirits are troubled," the second woman said.

"The outcome is never certain," the first one added.

"It's my right to try." Bishop took another step forwards.

Silence fell upon the room.

"So be it." The third woman's voice was deep and hollow, and barely sounded like it belonged to a human being at all. She waved her hands, and the lava opened to form two walls from each side of a staircase.

Said staircase was also made of lava, and Raphael gulped.

"Thank you." Bishop bowed before going without hesitation for the staircase.

He stopped in front of it and joined his hands, fists clenched, before opening his arms and his palms; all the while chanting words Raphael couldn't understand. Then he put a foot on the first step of the lava staircase.

Raphael held his breath, but Bishop didn't catch fire or yell in unbearable pain. However, the sound of a small object hitting the floor reverberated in the room. Raphael squinted to try to discern what it was. All he could say was that it shone blue.

Bishop frowned and turned over to pick it up.

"It can't follow you where you're going," the third woman said in her strange voice.

Bishop considered her words for a few seconds before nodding stiffly. Leaving the object behind him, he began climbing down the stairs.

Soon he was out of Raphael's sight. One moment later, the lava walls vanished until there was nothing left but a lava lake.

Raphael wondered what kind of trial Bishop was experiencing. He didn't really want to know - and especially not first-hand.

It was obvious that he wasn't going to follow Bishop where he was now, and thus his best course of action was to go back to the others. He turned around to go into the tunnel once again, only to realize that there was no tunnel anymore.

He was trapped.

Raphael blinked several times to make sure he was still seeing the same thing. The tunnel which had led him there had somehow disappeared, leaving only a smooth black wall.

When he was convinced that it was all too real, he turned around to watch the room once more. Maybe there was another exit that he hadn't seen? Maybe…

His heart skipped a beat.

The three women were looking his way.

"Come in," the first one said.

Raphael quickly dusted his clothes and hid his growing panic by taking his most respectful expression before he made a few steps towards them.

"Hello," he said, rather lamely. And to think he had reproached Leonardo for getting caught while spying on the adults, back at the oasis. He wasn't any better.

His situation might even be worse, all things considered.

The three women waited in silence.

"I… uh… I'm sorry if I disturbed you," he added. "I'll just go back now."

He wondered whether adding a sheepish grin would work in his favor or not. Who knew what three women living in a volcano expected from life in general, and from teenage intruders in particular?

"What is your quest?" the second woman asked.

Raphael blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Everyone coming here has a quest. What is yours?"

"I…" Raphael thought hard. Something told him that lying to these women would be a bad idea, but he didn't want to tell them that he was trying to stop the man they had just helped to do… something. However, it wasn't his only objective at the moment, was it? "I'm looking for my twin. He disappeared and nobody knows where he went."

"Is that so?" the first woman said.

"Yes! At least, I don't know."

"We do," the second woman chanted.

"You do? I knew he was alive!" Raphael took another step forwards, forgetting to be afraid. Now that he was closer to the three women, he could notice that something was off with their faces. But he couldn't pinpoint what, and he couldn't have cared less. Finally, someone had answers! And if that someone was a little weird, who was he to complain? "Where is he? Can you tell me?"

"Everything comes at a price," the first woman said. "What do you offer for this knowledge?"

"Uh… What do you want?" Raphael tried.

"I want you to carry that thing out of this mountain," the third woman suddenly said, pointing at the blue thing Bishop had left behind.

The first woman frowned, but didn't contradict her.

"Sure!" Raphael finally reached the platform and picked up the mentioned item with relief. It was a crystal, and its blue light pulsed slowly. "Now can you tell me where my brother is?"

"He's in his element," the first woman said.

Raphael was about to ask for more when something rumbled in the depths of the volcano. The lava around them bubbled.

"It looks like your friend found what he was looking for," the second woman said.

"He's not my friend!"

"You should go now."

Another rumble caused rocks to fall from the ceiling into the lava lake.

"Wait! Just tell me… where should I look for Leo?" Raphael said frantically.

"We already told you that." The first woman stood up.

The rumble became louder, and bigger rocks fell into the lava, forcing Raphael to move in order to avoid splashes.

"What's happening?"

"That? Oh, that's just an eruption." The second woman smiled. "You really should hurry."

Raphael's eyes went wide. "But what about you?"

"We can take care of ourselves. You, on the other hand, are a much frailer being."

Raphael renounced to any further discussion as he ran to retrace his steps. Dying inside a volcano wouldn't help anyone, especially not him.

When he reached the columns which had marked the tunnel's location, the wall suddenly vanished to reveal a familiar opening.

And a just as familiar figure who must have been pushing against the wall, because it fell on his knees.

"Slash? What are you doing here?"

The teenager didn't look at Raphael as he picked himself up. He glanced inside the room and his eyebrows furrowed in perplexity.

Raphael turned around and realized that the platform, the altar and the three women has all disappeared. Now only the lava lake remained, and… was it Raphael or had the lava level risen?

No time for quarrelling.

"Let's go!" Raphael shouted, pushing Slash back inside the tunnel.

They ran towards the exit, the lava slowly but surely following them on their way up, until the tunnel abruptly stopped.

Rocks had fallen from the ceiling, blocking their path. An animal the size of a rat would have been able to go through, but not two humans…

"Oh come on!" Raphael muttered under his breath.

Without losing a second, he began pushing against the blocks.

To no avail.

Slash helped him - or tried to, he was clearly panicking as the lava rose and rose until it was almost at their feet…

But the rocks wouldn't budge.

"Raph?" Slash whispered.

"Yes?" Maybe their imminent doom had changed Slash's feelings. Maybe he was going to tell him that he was happy not to be alone to face death, maybe…

"You're the worst."

Never mind, Raphael thought.

Now they had to climb between the rocks and the walls to avoid the lava.

"I'm going to get killed because of you!" Slash whined.

"Why did you follow me anyways?" Raphael said, exasperated.

"What, you think you're the only one wary of Bishop?"

Now the lava almost reached their feet. Raphael thought about his family, back at the oasis; about his twin, in some place he didn't know.

He's in his element, the woman had said.

In the water? It was true that water was something you could go into, unlike fire. Or lava.

But Bishop hadn't been hurt when he had disappeared into the lava lake…

He's a powerful and experienced bender, a little voice said inside Raphael's mind.

Raphael ignored it. He tried to remember the moves Bishop had made.

"We're going to die! We're going to die!" Slash shouted in his ears.

"Shut up!" Raphael yelled.

Taking a deep breath, he did his best to reproduce what he had seen. Bishop had been chanting, too, and Raphael hummed a similar tune. He had no idea what the words were supposed to be, so he chanted an old lullaby their mother used to sing to them…

"I knew it. You're crazy," Slash said next to him. He sounded resigned now.

Raphael ignored him. In the confined space where they were now, between the rocks blocking the tunnel and the lava raising, the heat was becoming almost unbearable.

The lava reached the sole of his shoe, which caught fire. Raphael took it off frantically.

Nothing in Bishop's clothes had caught fire. It wasn't working.

I told you so, the horrible little voice in his head said.

No, Raphael thought. I want to go back to my family. I want to see Leo again and yell at him to my heart's content for worrying me sick like that.

He closed his eyes. Images of his brothers flickered in his mind. Michelangelo testing a new recipe on them, and Leonardo pretending that the burned cake was delicious. Donatello smiling brightly at him from the saddle that enabled he and Mikey to ride, that time when they had followed Leonardo, Karai and Raphael into the desert…

I'm sorry I yelled at you, Donnie.

And Leonardo, playing with water in his favorite cave, his arms slowly moving back and forth to channel the liquid. Raphael smiled and let his own arms imitate the memory of his brother. If he was to die, then he wanted to feel as close to his twin as possible…

How come that he wasn't already dead, by the way?

"Oh wow," Slash whispered next to him.

Raphael opened his eyes and realized that the lava was going around them, kept at bay by his pseudo-waterbending moves.

I'm bending lava? I'm bending lava!

"Okay, whatever it is you're doing, don't stop," Slash added.

Raphael allowed a smirk to come to his lips. It looked like he wasn't going to die here after all.

Thanks, Leo.

Deep inside the volcano, three golden dragons swam into the lava, their thoughts focused on what was happening closer to the surface.

See? And you said he was too young. Too weak, a deep, hollow voice echoed in their minds.

My champion is still better, another voice said.

We'll see, sister. We'll see.

As long as the prophecy is fulfilled, I don't care who does it, one last voice said.

The two others fell quiet. They all knew what was at stake.

Bishop emerged near the top of the mountain, feeling more powerful than ever. Getting ready for this day had taken him years, but it had been worth it.

His fist clenched around the black stone that he had found at the bottom of the lava lake. A stone that could absorb a bender's power and allow someone else to wield it…

The loss of his waterbending crystal was meaningless now. He already knew the Shredder was alive. Thanks to Stockman, he would get to the ice protecting him and melt it. And then, while the Shredder was still weak, he would defeat him.

And take his waterbending power.

The ground trembled under Bishop's feet. Rivers of lava were already coming out of the mountain.

It wasn't safe to stay here, on top of an erupting volcano. Bishop hurried to join the others, who had already begun to climb down. However, something was amiss; he could discern the figures of his men and Stockman just fine, but… "Where are the boys?" he asked as he joined them.

"Inside," Stockman said in a tense voice. "I called for them, but they didn't answer, and then the tunnel entrance collapsed. When I earthbent the rocks out of the way, only lava came out. It had filled the whole tunnel."

"What?" Bishop couldn't believe his ears. "Why didn't you try to stop them from going in?"

"I wasn't their nanny!" Stockman defended himself, although his face looked sad.

Bishop noted his use of the past tense. And indeed, how could the two foolish teenagers have survived?

"Let's keep moving," he said, burying any sorrow at these lives ended too soon - for nothing - deep inside.

He couldn't afford to lose his focus, not now that he was so close to his goal.