Author's Note:

To the Guest: Aaaaaah thank you! I really appreciate that you take the time to do that. And why would you think that Spike is in any danger? *insert here innocent writer's eyes*

Fall into Darkness

"He was looking at these shelves," Raphael said.

Slash wasn't surprised that Raphael had been paying attention to that. Since the beginning of their expedition, Raphael had kept an eye on both Slash and Spike, as if he feared that Slash would hurt Spike if he was left alone with him.

Well, maybe Slash would.

Still, it was concerning that Spike had vanished. Not that Slash cared about his well-being - not at all - but because whatever had abducted him might still lurk in the shadows of this room.

He, Raphael and Angel were lighting it as best they could, but the many stone blocks presented lots of opportunities for hiding places. And the fact he had just realized Raphael and Leonardo were descendants of the Shredder didn't make it any more reassuring.

They knew, Slash thought, rage fighting his rising anxiety. And they didn't care sharing that knowledge with me.

Even though he had traveled with them from the waterbenders' island to the oasis. Even though Raphael and Slash had survived their trip with Bishop together.

Not that Slash cared.

The teenager started walking in the direction indicated by Raphael, careful to check every corner in his path. He increased the size of his fireball in case he had to use it as a weapon. His move made Karai frown - it looked like the girl was more worried about stupid scrolls getting burnt than about what was hidden in the shadows.

Slash hated it here. He wasn't made for tunnels and underground networks. He was a child of the sun, and loved nothing more than to feel its caress on his skin. Here, it was too dark - too cold.

"He can't be far," Leonardo said, straightening up so he wasn't leaning on Raphael anymore. "Maybe he found some hidden passage."

Or maybe he had fallen into a trap. Slash merely hoped he wouldn't, too.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Leonardo dry both himself and his brother. The water described a graceful semicircle before reaching the top of the biggest block in the room. Slash had already deduced there was a pool here - where else would Leonardo have found so much water?

As he looked left and right, searching for the stupid teenager that was somehow his brother - he hated that, he hated it, it was a terrible situation, no matter what Raphael said - Slash tried to think more calmly about the scene he had just witnessed.

The water had pictured a whole theater scene below the room's ceiling. Slash would never have admitted it aloud, but he was impressed. And maybe a little scared.

Leonardo didn't look dangerous, but maybe he was? Maybe he was going to betray them. After all, he was a waterbender just like the Shredder. Maybe he was leading them to the Shredder for a whole another purpose than to fight him…

If that what the case, Slash would make him pay.

But Karai had said that the Shredder's own daughter had fought him, and she was a waterbender too.

She had a terrible father, Raphael had said. It happens to the best of us.

Slash was wincing just thinking about it. The nerve of that guy! Who did he think he was? What did he know about dysfunctional families, with the one he had?

It was all he could do not to clench his fists. No matter what everybody else thought, he was able to control himself.

He had done that his entire life.

The five remaining members of their little group had arrived in front of the shelves where Raphael had last seen Spike. Karai gestured for them to stop.

"I'll look at it," she said.

Slash wasn't keen on listening to that non-bender, but if it was a trap, he would rather she was the one to fall into it.

"Be careful," Leonardo told his cousin.

It really sounded like he cared. Could someone use that tone towards a person they intended to betray?

Slash didn't know what to think.

Angel avoided looking at Raphael as she stepped back to let Karai investigate the shelves.

She would have thought that he knew he could trust her, but apparently not. So what if he was related to the Shredder? Angel had no doubt that her own lineage had its fair share of undesirable people.

But Raphael hadn't trusted her enough to tell her, and she couldn't help being bothered by it.

She would have liked the chance to ask him for an explanation, but now wasn't the time for that. She turned her attention to Karai, who had stuck her head between a pile of scrolls and the top of the shelf.

"Did you find something?" she asked Karai, pretending she wasn't seeing Raphael's pitiful expression as he tried to meet her eye.

"These scrolls appear to be blank," Karai said, her voice slightly muffled. "And they're glued to the shelves. If I wanted to put a lever somewhere, I'd do it right here, and… Ha!"

The rack of shelves on Karai's left pivoted on itself, freeing a dark opening in the wall. It had a lower ceiling than the tunnels they had seen until then, and it was sloped.

"It looks like Spike did find a hidden passage," Raphael whispered.

Angel frowned. The wall was large enough that they wouldn't have heard Spike if he had shouted, but they should at least be seeing the light of his fireball. And yet the tunnel was pitch black.

Was Spike lying unconscious somewhere inside it?

"Spike!" she yelled, going closer to the tunnel's entrance.

"Stop!" Leonardo shouted.

Angel stopped, surprised. She hadn't seen anything out of the - oh.

Now that she paying attention to the start of the tunnel more than to its depths, she could see that the ground was reflecting her twin fireballs in a strange way.

Leonardo knelt beside her and touched the ground.

"It's frozen," he whispered. "That tunnel must communicate with the Shredder's lair."

Heavy silence followed his words.

"That's good, right?" Raphael asked hopefully, breaking it. "That's where we want to go, after all."

Spike hadn't answered Angel's yell, but now that Leonardo had mentioned how close they might very well be to the Shredder, she didn't feel like yelling again in this dark hole.

"The slope is rather steep," Karai observed. "If Spike slid… Well, he might be all the way down by now."

"If we're going inside this, we'll need to melt the ice," Raphael said. He looked at his brother. "Do you want to do it?"

Leonardo shook his head. "It'd take too long. We have to get to Spike as fast as we can. I suggest we slid, too. I can slow us down at the end."

He sat down and put his legs inside the tunnel entrance.

"Uh, sure," Raphael said, obviously not feeling very enthusiastic about it.

Angel thought that Spike didn't have anyone to slow him down, and she bit her lip, hard.

"No way I'm sliding inside this," Slash said, furious.

"Then stay here," Karai replied. She had already sat down behind Raphael. "We'll pick you up on the way back."

"Are you sure the tunnel will stay open?" Angel asked. "It closed behind Spike, after all."

"No. I tried to block the lever, but I can't be sure it'll work." Karai tilted her head. "All the more reason that someone stays here."

"Then it should be you." Slash crossed his arms as he sat down too. "You like this place the most. Besides, you're not a bender. You'll only get in our way in a fight."

Angel glanced at Karai, curious to see whether her friend was going to prove him wrong.

"Are you done?" Leonardo asked, exasperated, before Karai could make up her mind. "We don't have time for this."

Now they were all forming a line on the ground: Leonardo first, then Raphael who had put an arm around his twin's waist while the other controlled a fireball, then Karai, then Angel, then Slash.

"On my count," Leonardo whispered. "Three, two, one."

Their human caterpillar slid inside the tunnel.

Spike had stopped yelling when he had realized that nobody was answering him. It had been several minutes ago, as far as he could tell, and he was still sliding down the steep slope of that tunnel, at such a speed that he didn't dare to bend anything bigger than a small fireball, for fear of burning his face instead of melting the ice.

He barely felt his bottom anymore, and he was beginning to rethink his latest life choices.

Why couldn't I just stay in the oasis and watch the children like I was asked to?

It felt like he was swallowed whole into the earth's bowels. He merely hoped that it was just a figure of speech and no giant beast was waiting to eat him alive.

Then the slope became less steep, and Spike began to slow down. It almost didn't hurt when he finally hit a wall at the end of the tunnel.

"Ouch," he said out loud, before wincing. He couldn't be sure he was alone.

Spike took several deep breathes. The air was colder here, and he used his firebending to keep his body at an acceptable temperature.

He was in a small room, whose walls and ceiling, like the ground, were covered in ice. To Spike's horror, parts of said walls and ceiling were beginning to detach, some already on the ground. Obviously this place had suffered a lot from the recent earthquake.

There were two new tunnels leaving it, and they didn't seem in a better shape than the room itself.

Spike wouldn't have explored them anyways. He wanted to go back to the others, which meant walking up the tunnel he had slid all the way down.

It wasn't an impossible task. All he would have to do would be to melt the ice as he progressed.

Spike didn't lose another second to stand up. This place was making his skin crawl and he wanted nothing more than to leave it on the spot.

He immediately fell back to the ground.

Right. The ice. It wasn't something you could just walk on.

Spike started melting it. When the thin film under him had turned to an inoffensive puddle, he got up and flexed his muscles.

Nothing broken.

He took a few steps, just to make sure he could still walk. His body was stiff and aching, but it was functional.

Melting the ice as he went, he made his way to the tunnel he had come from.

A crackle behind him made him jump, and he turned around, launching his fireball without even waiting to see what had made that sound.

He was the only person in the room, and the fireball hit the opposite wall and vanished. For one second Spike found himself in total darkness - and everything could attack him, and he wouldn't see them, he hated feeling so defenseless, he hated it, he was not that person anymore - until he made another fireball.

Then he realized what had crackled. The pool of water he had melted earlier had frozen again.

Spike swallowed hard. Right now, he would give a lot to be in the company of someone he knew.

Even Slash.

Raphael would have appreciated the ride a lot more if he wasn't so worried about Spike's disappearance, Leonardo's last exploit and Angel's sudden coldness all at once.

And by coldness he didn't mean the fact that the temperature had dropped significantly.

That didn't bother him that much; his firebending kept him warm, and he made sure it was warming Leonardo too.

He was also ensuring that his brother had enough light to see what was in front of them, so he would avoid hitting a wall or Spike, but so far the tunnel hadn't curved.

The only sound they heard was the rustle of clothes against ice as they slid faster and faster. It was still too loud for Raphael; he would have wanted them to be completely silent.

He felt unwelcome in this part of the underground, like it was… what? Haunted?

Don't be ridiculous.

If there were ghosts in these tunnels, they would have met them already, right? And they would likely be friendly ghosts, people from the past who had fought the Shredder like they were trying to do. People who would help them.

Or did the Shredder count as a ghost?

This wasn't helping. Raphael tried to shut off his brain, but the treacherous thing kept showing him pictures of a Shredder made entirely out of ice, with arms and legs bristling with shards, who bent over him with a mad smile and…

He saw light at the end of the tunnel.

"Leo," he said, even though his brother couldn't have missed it.

Leonardo began slowing them down, helped in that by the new and way gentler inclination of the slope. They came to a stop right before exiting the tunnel.

Raphael could see the unmistakable light of a fireball flickering in the room in front of them, and although he couldn't see anyone, he immediately recognized the voice calling them.

"Guys?"

"Spike!" Raphael exclaimed, forgetting in his relief that he had wanted to be silent.

Leonardo hurried to exit the tunnel, as did Raphael. He smiled at Spike.

"I'm so happy you're alright! We were worried."

But Spike didn't look happy. He was watching the ceiling with horror, and just when Slash - who was exiting the tunnel after Karai and Angel - set foot in the room, he launched himself forwards and pushed him to the side.

"Move!" he yelled to the others.

Leonardo reacted on instinct. He grabbed Raphael's sleeve and jumped backwards, his feet sliding on the ice that seemed to cover everything in this room. He melted it without even thinking about it.

Karai and Angel had already stepped back, and they gaped as the part of the ceiling that was right above the tunnel's exit collapsed. The rocks lifted a cloud of dust as they hit the ground.

Leonardo swiftly checked that nobody was hurt, especially Spike and Slash who had been closest to the tunnel.

They had both fallen to the ground and were now standing up, dusting themselves. Both showed the same shocked expression, and for the first time Leonardo caught a resemblance between them.

"Is everybody alright?" he asked.

The others answered with more or less convincing 'Yes', and Leonardo stifled a sigh of relief.

He grimaced as he assessed the damage. The tunnel they had come from was now completely blocked. If they wanted to go back this way, they would need to clear the way first.

He wasn't going to see the end of their ancestors' memories any time soon.

He hadn't been ready for what had happened in the pool. If only he had been able to keep it up just a while longer…

"The ceiling must have been weakened," Karai said. "It stood for Spike, but our passing was the last straw."

"There are two other tunnels, but they don't look in any better shape." Angel had stuck her head in the right tunnel. "This one looks like it's about to collapse any sec-AH!"

She jumped backwards, a hand on her heart.

"What happened?" Raphael said, running to her.

Leonardo made sure his brother's feet landed on wet ground and not on ice.

"I saw… On the wall… Look," Angel whispered, her face paler than Leonardo had ever seen it.

He moved forwards, following his brother. He could feel it - the ice. There was so much of it, and it was so close.

They were closer to their goal than ever before, but Leonardo didn't feel the Shredder's presence at all - which was a relief.

"Oh," Raphael said, and Leonardo hurried to join him.

That tunnel was in such poor shape that portions of its walls had already detached, allowing to see what was behind it.

A substance scintillating in the light of the fireballs.

Ice.

We must be below the water level, Leonardo thought.

He came closer to see what had frightened Angel so much, and he saw it.

The hand trapped inside the ice.

The night was falling, he could feel it. Far above his head, in the sky that he hadn't seen in centuries, the moon was rising.

As did his power.

Above him, he could hear the earth tremble. It must be the work of the oasis people. They must have noticed the disappearance of their warriors by now.

These annoying insects. Were they trying to collapse the cavern on him? Did they really think it would be enough to kill him?

Fools.

He made himself more comfortable on his ice throne. He had never minded the coldness and harshness of that material.

Just a few more hours. Then I'll meet them on the surface. Then I'll show them who I am…

He had been so patient. A few more hours were nothing. The reward would be worth it…

He frowned.

Something was wrong. There were people close, way too close from him. They were disturbing the ice.

The cavern was huge, and he had been focusing on the people above, but now that he was turning his full attention to it, there could be no mistake.

Someone was waterbending nearby, and he knew exactly who it was.

Violent joy filled what was left of his heart.

So you came.

Karai was removing blocks of rock as fast as she could, as did the others.

Behind the hand was the shape of a body. She couldn't be sure, but she thought she recognized it - that person was working with her father.

And if they were here, frozen in the ice…

Then maybe, just maybe, her father was here too.

The plan was simple. They would first widen the opening, then Leonardo would waterbend the ice and free the body. Then the firebenders would warm it until the person woke up.

Because they were going to wake up. Nothing else would be acceptable.

Karai stopped for a second, just the time to rub her hands together. The tips of her fingers were beginning to feel numb from the cold.

"Karai," Angel whispered.

Karai turned to her friend. Without another word - they were all too aware that the enemy was near - Angel put one cupped hand above the other before flattening them.

Karai felt the firebending at play. She considered her own hands.

She would be no use to anyone if they froze.

She glanced at the ice, and the shape that she hoped to free, and she took her decision. She mimicked Angel's moves, and soon a pleasant warmth diffused in her body.

"You're a firebender?" Slash said, forgetting to whisper in his surprise.

"Hush!" Raphael and Leonardo both said.

"No, really?" she whispered, rolling her eyes to hide her uneasiness.

Slash's face twisted into a scowl. An even bigger scowl than before, that was.

Apparently Slash wasn't too happy to have been rescued by Spike.

"If there is anything else we need to know, I'd rather learn about it now," Slash whispered back, a little too forcefully.

Karai exchanged a glance with Angel, Leonardo and Raphael.

"No, I think we're good," Raphael said.

It didn't escape Karai's notice that Spike had bowed his head to hide his face. She wondered what he might be hiding.

The opening was now wide enough to let a body pass.

"Leo, now," she whispered.

Leonardo nodded and slowly moved his arms. The ice turned into water that went swirling around the body. Then Leonardo changed his stance, and the body slowly began to move, carried by the water, until it was in the tunnel with them.

"I didn't remove all the ice," Leonardo whispered. "I don't want to risk breaking them."

Karai nodded. "We'll melt the rest with fire at the same time we warm them up."

She looked at the hole that the body had left in the ice. Behind the now vacant space, she could see other shapes.

Hope swelled in her heart. They were going to make it. They were going to save them.

She felt someone's gaze upon her and turned her head to smile at Leonardo.

So she didn't see it coming.

Suddenly there was water all around her, engulfing her, and the cold seized her body, threatening to knock her unconscious.

And she realized that the ice in front of them had melted all at once.