A/N: Hey guys! VoidInkedPen made a wonderful animatic for the hallway scene from chapter 22! This site won't let me post the link here, but it's on A03 and uploaded to YouTube, tumblr, and Twitter! They put in a lot of hard work so be sure to check it out!

Donnie awoke with a groan. His head pounded, and his entire body felt simultaneously stiff and sore. It was like he had been both locked in one position for too long and just had the most strenuous workout of his life. It was a hurt kind of tired. He tried to figure out why, but his thoughts refused to come together. They just tumbled around in his brain making no sense at all. It was very annoying. It was like he had been shocked or something…

Oh. He had been, hadn't he? Memory started coming back to him: blue electricity, and glimpsing what looked like an aged-up version of his best friend. The rescue attempt. The capture. Bishop! His brothers! How long had he been out? What happened?

He pushed himself up, muscles protesting for a moment but calming down as they got used to moving again. His surroundings revealed… very little, actually. It was a small room with a soft floor and three white walls. The fourth 'wall' he determined was a door. It stretched from the floor to the ceiling and seemed to be made of fogged glass. Upon inspection he found it sealed tightly; there were no identifiable hinges or keyholes he could tamper with, either. The only thing he could make out was that there seemed to be light coming from the other side. He craned his head up to find his own room's source of light and saw that the ceiling was much higher than expected for such a small space. The light fixture and all its wires were definitely out of reach. If he had his spider shell, now…

Getting to his feet, he crossed to a wall to see if he could scale it somehow. To his surprise, it was just as soft as the floor. The whole place felt like pleather car cushions. He couldn't even find any seams or strings that would suggest a weakness he could tear out. He slumped against it for a moment, and then chuckled.

"Well, it's not that I expected to wind up in a padded, white room one day, but I always figured it would happen at Leo's hands."

"Pepino?"

He jumped away, startled, then rushed back and put his ear against the wall. "Señor Hueso? Is that you?"

"Si," came the muffled response through the wall. "What happened? I thought I sent you to get help."

Donnie's eyes widened. "Oh, ah, it's Donatello, señor. Leo told us what happened and we came to rescue you!"

There was silence on the other end. Then, "I see."

"Well, it didn't go quite according to plan," Donnie admitted. He cast a look at the fogged door worriedly. "In fact, I should have been back by now. What time is it? Have you heard anything about my brothers?"

"No, you are the first. I do not believe they are here, though. These walls are thin, and they are not quiet."

"True…" The information gnawed and twisted in his belly. "Where is here, exactly? I just woke up."

He heard Hueso sigh. "I was hoping you could answer that. We were transported underground, then pulled into a large room with many of these cells. My guess is that this is some kind of prison, but no one has come to see us since we were thrown in here."

Underground… Donnie hadn't even considered that. He smacked his forehead. What an oversight! Bishop was sneaky, he knew that, he should have at least considered that the guy would have even more levels secured beneath them!

"Pepino," Hueso sounded concerned. "What happened to you? You said you just woke up."

"Uh… yeah." Donnie's mind flashed. "We were all captured… then I managed to escape. I was trying to find something to break them out, but then… s-someone got the drop on me." He traced his hand down the wall, closing his eyes. The image of that older face, so much like April, flashed through his mind and he tried to shake it, unwilling to examine just what that meant. The memory of Mikey holding Hueso's fallen hat seized him instead.

"Are you okay?" he asked urgently. "Are you hurt?"

He didn't like the long pause. "I am… intact."

Bile rose in his throat at the words. A fresh wave of stabbing guilt rocked through him. He rested his head on the wall, unable to get the image of the bone man's hat out of his mind. He swallowed. "Hueso, I'm… I'm so sorry."

Muffled movement vibrated through the wall. "Why do you say that?"

"The man who attacked your restaurant. I…" he struggled to get the words out. "I told him how to do it. Not specifically, we were talking theories, and I swear I had no idea, or at least very little idea, that he, that he would do such a thing…" He stuttered off. What was he saying? None of this would have ever happened had he just ignored the first email. Why didn't he just do that? What had compelled him to answer something so obviously nefarious?

He slid down the wall to his knees as the full weight of guilt and blame finally hit him. His wall was gone, crumpled like his battle shell. His fix-it was halted as long as he was trapped in this cell. There was nothing more to protect him from the truth. It was like he was under a laser that he couldn't escape. An intense beam stayed pointed at him wherever he went, and it was called Responsibility. It was Fault, it was Mistake, it was Blame and Ruin and it was cooking him alive from the inside out.

He didn't want that potent laser trained on him. He always did everything in his power to avoid it. His breath hitched, and that awful pricking was back in his eyes.

"Pepino." Hueso's voice was gentle, and he almost didn't catch it. "You are not responsible for another person's actions."

Donnie rubbed his eyes, hating that the back of his hand came away wet. "I… I know that. But… I still shouldn't have been talking with him. I just wanted…" To improve my tech. To finally understand mystic energy. To… TALK with someone who felt the same way.

"Whatever you wanted, I'm sure it was well-intentioned."

He shivered. "Yeah."

"If poorly thought out."

Despite everything, it made him chuckle. The guilt laser cooled down by a few degrees. "Thanks, Hueso."

"Of course," came the skeleton's dry voice. "Now, since it appears you know the man behind all this, who is he?"

"Agent John Bishop." Fresh hatred cut through his devastation. It was raw, dark, and intense, but it filled him with energy. Donnie straightened his back and narrowed his eyes. His voice hardened. "The so-called leader of this organization. He's a lying, traitorous, schemer of all things that-"

He fell silent as a shadow suddenly darkened the fogged door. With an almost inaudible hum it opened inward, and there stood the man in question.

Bishop smiled thinly. "I suppose I should be flattered to hear that I'm the topic of your conversation."

Donnie got to his feet and crossed his arms. "If aspiring to the lowest of the low is the bar you've set for yourself, then congratulations, you made it." His voiced dripped with disdain. "Though I think that says something about your standards."

"Perhaps." Bishop didn't rise to the bait. Instead, he angled his body towards the door, as if in invitation. "Shall we?"

"Oh, no. I'm not going anywhere with you."

"There is very little you can do about that. I am offering you the choice of walking to our destination under your own power. That is not a privilege afforded to anyone, but our previous conversations have led me to respect you, to an extent."

"Respect?" Donnie repeated incredulously. "Where was the respect when you attacked Run of the Mill Pizza? Where was the respect when your lackey took my battle shell? When you threatened to kill me and my brothers?" He waved his arms. "You think walking is gonna cut it?"

"As I said: to an extent." Bishop shrugged. "But if you insist on being wheeled over, then I can certainly accommodate you."

Donnie stopped him with a brazen hand. "I'll walk."

He didn't miss Bishop's smirk. It made him seethe, but he tried to tone it down for the sake of spying an opportunity to escape again. Walking had to be far better than whatever 'being wheeled' meant, and the situation was far from over. He glanced back to the wall for a moment, but Hueso remained silent. They stepped out.

The room they stepped into was much, much larger than the tiny cell, and its size gave Donnie the impression that it was colder. Whether or not there was an actual temperature difference couldn't be determined, but he shivered nonetheless, shell prickling.

The room was also… familiar? Donnie could swear that he'd never seen it before, but the doors surrounding the curving white walls also didn't surprise him. It was like he'd read about it, somewhere, or heard of it. He paused for a moment, lingering by the railing, to try and place it.

"This way." Bishop steered him with his arm and he jerked it away, huffing.

"Where are my brothers?"

"Cooperate and you'll find out."

"No. Tell me if they're alive, first."

Bishop looked at him impassively. "They were when last I saw them."

He didn't like the answer; it left too much open to interpretation. It was better than nothing, though, so he covered up his uneasiness with an air he knew best: teenage indifference. He crossed his arms and looked bored as they exited the room down a long, white hallway.

"So what is this, some kind of underground lab?"

"Cocytus is many things," the agent replied. "So that is partly correct. Some of the BAI's projects are too sensitive for the average employee, you understand." He stopped before a white door.

"Sounds diabolical," Donnie said dryly. "Now what am I supposed to be cooperating with so that I may go ahead and rebel already?"

"Once you hear what I have to say, rebellion may not be necessary." Bishop opened the door.

Inside was what looked like an operating room combined with a regular doctor's office. Counters and cabinets lined two walls. Various machines ranging from a standard EKG monitor to a centrifuge stood in the corners, ready to be wheeled over on their carts. Mechanical arms ending in points hung from the ceiling, ready for various tools to be attached to them. In the middle of the entire theatre was a stainless steel table with one corner missing.

It would have had him drooling under any other circumstances. What he wouldn't give to take some of this stuff home! It was truly a crime that it all belonged to Bishop, so instead he relied on his old-time friend: sarcasm. "Oh look, a creepy, medical examination lab, no renegade mad scientist has that. Color me shocked."

Bishop merely shut the door behind them. "I do apologize for the violent display with your battle shell, earlier," he said. "Such actions are necessary to make my point when dealing with perceived enemies."

Donnie took a step back, utterly floored. This was nowhere near what he had been expecting. His mind did backflips as he grappled for a moment to come up with a response. "Is this some convoluted way of telling me we're somehow no longer enemies?"

"Perhaps. That depends on how things proceed." The man leaned against a counter by the door. "I was certainly surprised to learn that you and your brothers had been mutated by Baron Draxum."

Donnie gaped. "Yeah… surprised enough to threaten to kill us!"

"I apologize for that, too. I was… not thinking clearly. It had been so long since I had heard that name. I failed to appreciate our mutual solidarity."

Donnie narrowed his eyes suspiciously. Bishop did appear calmer, but he still wasn't sure what angle he was playing. Because he had to be playing an angle.

"Mutual solidarity, right," he said cautiously. "You seem to have your own unique history with him."

Bishop snorted. "To put it mildly." He bent down and rolled up his right pant leg. An ugly, straight scar ripped down his calf from the back of his knee to his ankle.

"A Yokai intent on destroying humanity had a lot to learn about humans."

Donnie gulped at the sight of the wound. It looked like a crude, surgical cut. He could only imagine how deep the initial injury had been, and how much it must have hurt. "I'm sorry."

Bishop rolled down the pant leg. "For what, exactly?"

He floundered for a moment, blanking. "I don't know. I wasn't there. It's just a thing people say."

The agent watched him carefully for another moment, then nodded to himself. "As horrid as my own scars may seem, I'm one of the lucky ones. Only Hun and I made it out of that torture chamber alive."

Torture chamber? That seemed… extreme.

He thought he was still poker-faced, but Bishop picked up on his skepticism. "Perhaps you and your brothers do not recall what it was like, but I remember every detail very vividly. The shadows on the walls. The vines that could come to life. The form of our captor." He paused. "But those were nothing compared to the screams. Have you ever watched someone undergo a mutation?"

"Yes," Donnie answered, surprised that his voice came out so steady. "It didn't look fun."

"Have you ever seen a mutation fail?"

He blinked. Took a step back.

"Oh, yes." Bishop leaned forward. "It's not pretty. I've watched spines outgrow their owners. I've seen flesh puddle at their feet. I've watched former humans get crushed under the weight of their new exoskeletons. I listened to their final moans, screams, and all the other ungodly noises they made in their death throes for weeks. These were beside the regular tests. Yokai couldn't be bothered to attend a human anatomy class in disguise, no, Draxum had to learn things for himself. Physical exertion, memory tests, opening us up to find out just what made us tick – all in the pursuit of our eventual extinction." He stared intently at Donatello. "You can understand the horror, can't you?"

It made too much sense. With what little he knew of Draxum's work, the pieces clicked uncomfortably well. He reached for something to hold onto and gripped the edge of the steel table.

"In many ways, I am extremely fortunate I didn't lose my leg. Hun only lost his voice. Neither of us were condemned to the trial cage, and we managed to escape with our lives." He raised his eyebrows. "But imagine the world we returned to.

"No one would believe us. Stories of a hidden city were something out of fantasy books. Yokai? Mystic creatures living underground? Missing humans trapped in cages, subject to experimentation? An impending genocide?" Something distant flickered in his eyes. "The sheer skepticism… it could drive a man insane."

No doubt. Donnie looked around. "So you made this."

Bishop nodded. "The BAI will protect mankind if no one else well. We know the true threat and are willing to do whatever it takes to stop it." He softened his voice. "As one who also suffered at the hands of Yokai, I can provide you a way to fight back."

The tone was meant to be mesmerizing, lulling. Donnie just shook his head. "First of all: you act like every Yokai was onboard with Draxum's 'reclaim the surface' idea, which they weren't. In fact, most of them are against it. He was flying solo that whole time. Which, secondly, leads me to ask: 'what part of all this justifies you attacking a pizza place of all things?'"

"Interesting," Bishop said, bypassing his question. "For so many supposedly against the idea, they let him continue without consequences."

Donnie huffed. "Oh, I wouldn't say that. Draxum can't even show his face in the Hidden City ever since the Stadium Incident."

"Draxum was involved in the Stadium Incident?"

"I'm sorry, you've got how many resources at your disposal and didn't know that?"

"How then do you know that?"

Donnie opened his mouth then paused. Hold on a minute. Bishop was listening to him. Like, really listening to him. This guy was a villain, he had attacked Hueso and his brothers and took his battle shell, why were they talking like old chums?

His eyes widened. Bishop truly didn't know that Draxum had been in the Stadium Incident. He didn't know… a lot.

"I see what you're doing." He crossed his arms. "It won't work."

"So you're allied with Draxum." The tone was accusatory.

"Uh, no, but forgive me for thinking I probably shouldn't talk about mutants and Yokai with a guy who literally attacks mutants and Yokai."

"The mutants are sequestered for their own safety," Bishop replied. "We do hope to remedy their condition. As for the Yokai, if there was a way for me to determine their innocence or culpability, things wouldn't need to be this way."

The implication disgusted him. "I'm not giving you some kind of list of names! It's called innocent until proven guilty."

"And the silent are just as guilty as the perpetrators." The agent watched for his reaction. He sighed when there was none forthcoming.

"I had hoped that you already understood. Our previous talks were very enlightening and advanced several of the BAI's projects. Truly engaging discussions."

Donnie ground his teeth together. "They were only engaging because you tricked me!"

"How exactly did I do that? I was honest from the beginning."

"You weren't clear about your intentions! I thought you were just studying mystic energy to make sense of it! To help cure mutants! Not to use it to attack innocents in some twisted form of vigilante justice!"

"It's not my fault your presumptions were off."

"You conned me!"

"You let yourself be conned."

He choked as the words stung. It was… true. He knew better, he knew better, but still engaged. That damning laser was back and those horrible feelings threatened to overwhelm him again.

He knew better, yes, but… he had also been hoodwinked. You are not responsible for another person's actions. Hueso's words came back to him, and with them he stubbornly managed to cool the laser's intensity. His tone turned icy. "So you can bet I won't let it happen again."

Bishop shrugged. "You can still assist me, willingly or not. As a successful specimen of what Draxum was working towards, there is much I can learn about his army from you."

"Except he has no army! It's just us."

"Interesting. Why just the four of you?"

"That's-" He clamped his mouth shut. You're doing it again, dum-dum! STOP TALKING TO HIM. "That's irrelevant. No more questions, I already said I'm not helping you."

"I see." He didn't like the way the agent studied him. "So you, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Leonardo are unique."

Using their names got to him, and he knew that was the intention. There was no way this guy should know them, and yet here was proof that he had been outwitted. He dug his fingers into his skin. A dozen retorts flashed through his mind: spiteful comebacks, acidic quips, and jabs that would make even Leo blush. But he held his tongue, unwilling to give Bishop even the tiniest morsel of ammunition to use against him.

Bishop leaned back, a smile playing on his face. "Ah, I see. The Silent Treatment. I suppose I'll just have to reach out to dear April for the rest. She was already helpful enough to provide me with your true identities."

"What?" He blinked in surprise, then scowled. "No. She would never- if she did then you just tricked her, too."

"If my 'trickery' makes the truth easier for you to swallow, then so be it," he said lightly. "It makes no difference as to the outcome. She told me who you really are, and I went from there."

"No, she didn't, she couldn't…" he shook his head again. Bishop was slimy, Bishop was cunning. April, of all people, would never betray them, would never betray… him. There was just no way. The bastard was manipulative as hell. Which reminded Donnie that he was still talking to him, geez, how did that keep happening? Who knew what he might accidentally let slip?

The last thing he was going to do was betray his own brothers.

He clenched his teeth.

Bishop continued to speak, and he tried to tune it out. He thought about plans for rebuilding his battle shell. Quotes from his favorite Lou Jitsu movies. Ideas on how to get out of this room. He thought about his brothers, how he could get them out of this building, if they were still in this building, if they were truly alive or if that was another lie.

Silence eventually alerted him that the agent had ceased speaking. He looked up.

"Very well," Bishop smirked. "We'll do this the old-fashioned way."

He didn't see the remote the agent fiddled with in time to leap away from the table he was leaning on. Robotic clamps sprang forth from the surface and gripped his wrists. He snapped back against the steel with an oof as they retracted, and two more clamps secured his ankles. He tugged at them frantically to no avail.

"Like I said, there is still much I can learn from a successful mutation." The agent approached with a needle in hand, light glinting off of it like a diamond point. "Should you change your mind, I may not need to go so far as dissection."

Donnie stared at the needle, wide-eyed, then rolled his eyes at the last word. "That's your big threat? Please, one of my own inventions already tried to do that to me." His voice was steady even though his heart was beating a mile a minute. He really needed a way to get out of robotic clamps if this was going to keep happening. Perhaps Shelldon could provide some pointers.

Bishop saw right through him and chuckled. "You use sarcasm as your coping mechanism for fear." He jabbed the needle into Donnie's elbow, making him wince. "We'll see how long that lasts."