Oh boy oh boy oh boy guys this one's important and exciting we think you'll like it...
By the way I'm still celebrating that little PG13 Apritello animation currently going viral on the internets. I think I will be cellebrating for a while. Hng!
As always, huge thanks to Queequegg and Theherocomplex for their beta reading!
April awoke with a slight start, and for a brief moment thought she was at home, and dad was calling for her. She nearly jumped to her feet, ready to run to his aid. But a second later she looked up and met Donnie's calm gaze. His smooth head and shell were backlit by the dim bulb of the desk lamp, his hand gently rocking her shoulder.
"You fell asleep," Donnie said softly.
"Hngwhat…" she mumbled, still a little disoriented, then quickly ran her hand over the corner of her mouth to wipe off a line of drool. Thankfully Donnie didn't comment on her dribbling, for all the times she'd found him coating his keyboard in slobber.
"Hachisu's K.O., finally." He showed her his tablet, in which she could see Hachisu's green-hued face, eyes rolling back and forth underneath her lids.
April tried to shake off that dream, the sound of her dad's calls through the corridor still resonating in her ears. It left her with an odd sense of culpability, her gut twisting with guilt, thinking of him, and how she wasn't home with him tonight. But what was worse was how much she'd been looking forward to spending one night away from that.
The thought made her feel slightly sick, so she immediately banished it, and rubbed her face. "What time is it?"
"Exactly four fifteen," Donnie replied right away without looking, and she ogled.
"Whoa, I've been asleep a while," she said, shifting towards the edge of the cot. They'd waited so long, and April had been so tired from school and general lack of sleep that she'd finally fallen prey to exhaustion, lulled by the soothing clickity-clackity of Donnie's keyboard. She realized she was covered in a blanket she didn't remember grabbing, and her glasses were sitting neatly folded on the desk next to her laptop and her T-phone.
"That's alright," Donnie said. "You looked so tired, I almost didn't wanna wake you up." He offered a hand to help her up, looking at her like one would look at a basket full of sleepy puppies. He was probably doing that just to tease her—or not. She narrowed her eyes at him before taking his hand.
"I would've been pissed in the morning if you hadn't woken me up, and you know it."
Donnie didn't seem intimidated, but smirked. "I know, that's why I woke you up."
"Good. For you," she said in a low grumble as she headed for her glasses, in her best impression of an action movie badass. But all she got out of him was another coy chuckle, and her body betrayed her once more by letting loose the butterflies. As if she hadn't blushed enough already that night. She was trying so hard not to indulge in this silly crush, not to let it show. Why wouldn't her body cooperate?
She shoved the feeling way down, deep enough that it wouldn't show through the surface, then put on her glasses, business face included.
Unfortunately, her headache was back; the effects of the pills must be wearing off. Just as well, she supposed. Over these past couple of years she'd learned that while painkillers took the pain away, they also numbed her senses. The headache wasn't so bad, and she would rather be a hundred percent right now. Catching sight of Donnie's mug, she noticed there was still a bit of coffee left, and she downed the cold, bitter liquid in one gulp. The horrible taste shocked her into full attention.
"Let's do this," she proclaimed.
Agreeing that it was pointless for both of them to go, and that Donnie was the most experienced ninja, April once again resigned herself to the role of look-out and back-up. Her job would be to stay behind and keep a close watch on the scene, with the aid of the roach cam.
"Okay, everything's set." Donnie was already speaking under his breath, even in the safety of the lab. "We have to hurry. Hachisu's REM phase should last us another fifty to eighty minutes. The box has to be back by her mat before that."
On screen, the woman's face was a picture of serenity. Hachisu's mat was a bit isolated from the rest of the group, which should make it easier for Donnie to sneak up on her.
April nodded, eager to begin, and they both grabbed their night-vision goggles.
Just as they got to the garage door, Donnie paused. April turned to see him fidgeting with his goggles.
"Man, if Master Splinter hears about this. Or Leo," he said.
Not last-minute anxiety, April thought, groaning silently, fearing he'd back down from the mission. She was too determined—or maybe too uncomfortable, her head pulsing—to consider quitting now.
"Come on, Donnie, we spent hours preparing for this."
"I don't know, I'm- I'm getting second thoughts. Maybe we should wait a bit longer."
"If whatever Hachisu's hiding is dangerous, then it's better we expose it as soon as possible. We can't wait out an onryo," she said, itching to move things along so she could take that painkiller as soon as possible. "For all we know, the future turtles were trying to tell us to look for this thing, and secure it. And if it's nothing, we'll just put it back before anyone knows."
After a few seconds of wincing and sighing, Donnie nodded. He turned, eyes blazing with conviction, and slipped under the garage door. With a sigh of relief, she followed him out to the tunnel and around towards the turnstiles. Entering through there would be much quieter than trying to move the noisy lab doors.
Even in the dead of night, the lair was never quiet. There was always the dull humming from the ventilation system, the occasional drip-drop of old pipes and the wind whistling through the abandoned tunnels. Any other night, the pinball machine's periodic jingle would beckon passersby to play, although now it was missing. Like the common room's ambient lights, it had been turned off in deference to their guest clan. In its place, a choir of snores emanated from the Lotus camp—the perfect cover.
And then there was that very faint ringing in April's ears.
"Stealth mode," Donnie mouthed by her, slipping on his night-vision goggles. April adjusted her own as best as she could on top of her glasses, filter-adapted tablet in hand. With one combined thumbs-up, he moved in.
It was pitch-black at the far end of the big cavernous room. Donnie moved in shadows, keeping close to the wall. Even with her headache, she had to appreciate the noiselessness and agility with which Donnie slid his way across the cement floor, as silently as if he'd been walking on cotton. One day, she promised herself. Meanwhile she went to kneel behind the turnstiles and her joints gave a loud snap that even made Donnie turn. She shook her head, and gestured at her knees, and his gap-toothed grin shone against the blackness like a cheshire cat.
As she scanned the camp, April's head gave a powerful throb and she winced. She had to will herself not to close up, even if it hurt more.
One look at the roach cam saw Donnie arriving by the Lotus leader's mat, a colossus from this angle. She watched, heart in her mouth, as his shadow moved closer to Hachisu's still form, arm reaching for the little box lying beside her.
But something wasn't right. Something nagged at her among the already loud sensations, like someone blowing on her neck in a windstorm. She looked up.
Among the piles of lying bodies in sleeping bags, her gaze locked onto one of them. One sleeping bag was empty.
"Donnie," she breathed urgently into the com. He stopped dead in his tracks, inches from Hachisu, and looked down at the camera, at her. "Donnie, there's one empty sleeping bag. Where's the owner?"
She saw him slowly crane his neck, spotting the vacant mat, still as a mouse. April peeked over the turnstiles and counted the Lotus. There were 14 of them. How did they not notice? Why didn't they check this before?
Reprimanding herself, she searched the room from her safe position.
Then she heard it: a flushing toilet. Of freakin' course.
She didn't need to say anything. Donnie immediately retreated back into the shadows, between the weapons rack and the canal. But he wasn't invisible, not if whoever was in the bathroom turned on a light.
He was trapped.
It was up to her. She had to intercept the fifteenth Lotus.
Her own bare legs and sock-covered feet gave her an idea. She dropped the goggles and the tablet, and started ruffling her hair. Then she slid under the turnstiles, and snuck across the common room over to the bathroom door, just in time for it to open.
Against the light of the bathroom was the silhouette of a man. He let out a small exclamation in seeing her there, arms up in a defensive position.
"Oh! I am sorry!" It was the old man called Jiro, dressed in a comfy yukata. Dropping his arms, the man stepped aside, letting her in the bathroom.
April prayed Hachisu hadn't heard that.
"Miss?" Jiro said tentatively when she didn't move.
Here goes. April put on the blankest expression she could muster, face lax and shoulders sagging. Through her half closed lids she saw the old man looking at her askance. He reached out without touching her.
"Miss. You okay?"
April replied by directing an incoherent mumble over Jiro's left shoulder, as though speaking to someone that was standing behind him. When he turned to look, she took the opportunity to do a quick scan of the common room behind her for a sign of Donnie. The light from the bathroom leaked out into the living room, and she managed to catch a glimpse of his shape against the background, the light reflected as pinpoints in his eyes. She turned back to Jiro in time to see him squint into the darkness, following her gaze.
At once she intensified her mumbling. Careful not to wake more Lotus ninjas, she practically stormed past the old man and mumbled angrily at the door frame under the perplexed look of poor Jiro. Then, without warning, she gave a dreamy sigh and let her gaze fall slowly to the floor. And she went quiet.
Jiro's amused chuckle was a good sign that he had caught on. "Miss, you are asleep," the old man said softly in his heavy accent, reminding her of Murakami-san. "I will take you to your bedroom, okay?"
With extreme care, he turned her around by the shoulders, guiding her away from the evil doorframe towards the bedrooms. April resisted, abruptly pulling to the side every few steps as if she wanted to escape Jiro's grasp, only to make sure he'd pay attention to her and not the Lotus camp where Donnie was still hiding. It worked; they made it through the common-room and up the stairs without incidents.
"That's my girl," said a low voice in her ear, almost making her jump: Donnie.
April allowed herself a smile—it would kind of play into the whole sleepwalker charade anyway. Then she actually processed what he'd just said to her, and marvelled. She half-expected Donnie to take his words back any second now, perhaps stutter a needless apology. But… he didn't! He had actually sounded pretty confident there.
"Which is your room?" Jiro whispered, snapping April back to the present, and she had to right herself not to blow her cover. She headed straight for Donnie's empty room as sole response. Jiro followed her closely, turning on a lamp. Hoping he wouldn't think anything of the freshly-made state of the bed, she quickly jumped in and threw on the clean covers. He must have been satisfied, because a moment later he chuckled again, and closed the door.
Now all she could do was wait. She listened intently, hearing Jiro's steps fading, and then silence. Good. Silence was good. Then, after a few minutes of barely breathing, came Donnie's "all-clear" over the comm.
Full of exuberant relief and feeling quite happy with herself, she blithely ninja'd herself back to the lab, checking on the way that everybody was in their sleeping bags.
She found Donnie waiting for her by the desk when she slipped under the garage door.
"And the Oscar goes to: April O'Neil!" Donnie beamed, holding up the small box.
April chuckled, relishing the proud look on Donnie's eyes. "How's that for misdirection and camouflage?"
But that's when her head started throbbing, more painfully than before, and she shot the box a dubious look. It looked so minuscule in Donnie's large green palm, so innocuous. Yet April knew that had to be the haunted object because of the way it was… pulsating, though she knew Donnie couldn't feel it. She felt both drawn to it and repelled.
"I gotta say, that didn't go half as badly as I feared. Quick thinking there," Donnie said happily.
"Yeah," April agreed absent-mindedly, feeling a pang behind her eyes.
Donnie gingerly laid the object under the spotlight. "Let's see now." With a few clicks on his keyboard, the camera's red light started blinking and some other gizmos started whirring. April watched him lean in and snap a few closeups with his phone.
As he worked, April found herself shifting closer and closer to the mysterious thing.
There was something in there. And it was furious.
"Are you alright?"
April looked down at Donnie, who was on his knees, level with the box.
"You don't look too good," he insisted, his brow getting wrinklier by the second.
She pressed her hand against her clammy temple, but succeeded in giving him a reassuring smile. "It's nothing."
But Donnie stood up and regarded her worriedly. "Seriously, you're white as a sheet. Maybe you should sit this one out."
His grimace of concern only annoyed her more. And besides, she'd already put up with enough "ninjas-only" operations, which meant she would often have to sit on the sidelines, "keeping watch" as the guys did all the important work. Well, she'd kept enough watch for today. She was not going to miss out this time.
"I'm fine, my head is just… buzzing. I just want to get this over with quick and put the box back."
Donnie didn't seem all convinced, but closed his mouth.
"Let's open it already, we don't have much time." She tried hard not to grit her teeth.
Donnie shook his head. "We're not breaking that thing out until I run some safety tests," he said, and grabbed his tracker from the desk. April watched as he hovered it over the box with tortuous care, to the sound of its familiar beeping. She tapped her foot and closed her eyes in an attempt to ease her fired up nerves.
"Fascinating," she heard Donnie say in a low admiring voice. "I'm picking up some pretty odd readings, but they're very muted. That box must be acting as a sort of containment unit. That's probably why you couldn't sense it, aside from the headaches. At least there doesn't seem to be anything hazardous so far..."
She tried to concentrate on what he was saying, but it was becoming increasingly difficult. All she knew was this was taking forever, and she couldn't endure much more of it.
"Wow. I don't even know these kanji. They must be ancient. I bet they're protective spells of some kind..."
"Donnie, we don't have time for this!" she interrupted him, almost in a reflex. "We have to open it." It took all her remaining self control not to groan and claw at her temples, while a small voice chirped a warning in her ear: if it's this bad now, when the box is closed, maybe we shouldn't open it at all...
But the voice was tiny, easily drowned out in all the noise going on in her head, which might as well have been inside a cement mixer. She needed this to be over.
Through the haze, she saw Donnie looking thoughtful for a second. "You're right, Hachisu could wake up any moment, and then we'll never know what's inside." He set something down on the desk next to the box: the tracker. "Now, if we're going to open it, we need to take it very slow. Let's do it in stages. One of us will keep a hold of the box at all times and shut it at the first sign of trouble. Hold on, lemme just..."
But she was hardly listening at that point.
The moment Donnie stepped away, April squinted and approached the box curiously. She could swear she heard something coming from within.
"Where did I put that EM gun?" Donnie's voice echoed from far, far away, and she tried to ignore it.
Inching closer, April listened intently at what sounded like a woman's voice. She was speaking to her, calling her. She was trapped. Trapped inside the box. April couldn't bare the pain and urgency in the voice.
All she could hear was her anguish.
All she wanted was for it to stop.
The tiny voice of reason yelled madly at her from the deepest corner of her mind, but it was nothing compared to the things she was hearing all around, the cries of despair, that claustrophobic crackling. There was only one thing she could think about, only one thing to do.
Unable to stop herself, she shot her arm at the box and flicked the lid open.
Something knocked April backwards, or maybe it was her own feet, trying to get her away. Away from the thing that was shrieking so loudly in her ears. Pain. In an instant, she forgot where or who she was, blinded and deafened to everything but the images being stabbed into her mind, visions of fire, and crying, and agony.
Donnie's ears rang as he came back to himself. He tried to focus past the shrill noise to figure out what had happened. How did he end up on the floor? He looked around him, at the strange stillness that was somehow filled with a roaring noise, like a train passing by. He saw flashes, and it took him a moment to realize it wasn't him; the lab lights were flickering, all his instruments turning on and off, a cacophony of buzzing and whirring. The medical monitors buzzed with static. His tracker beeped madly at the desk's edge, and then it fell. In the disorienting chaos, he remembered April.
He looked around. There was someone there. Not April. The sickly green light from the algae pools outlined a pale woman in a white shirt, black hair falling over her face. She stood a few feet in front of him, and even though he couldn't see her eyes behind the veil of hair, he could tell she was staring at him—studying him. At her feet, there was a small bright-red object. Donnie knew immediately what it was.
The woman started moving, passing over the chinese pendant. Donnie followed her line of sight, and saw April's crouching figure writhing on the floor.
"April!" Donnie cried, barely able to hear his own voice over the ongoing grumbling. He scrambled to his knees, feeling impossibly heavy, like several atmospheres pressing down on him. This wasn't normal darkness: it was thick and heavy, charged with an aguish that bore down on him like a lead cloud.
The ghost moved towards April with what might have been curiosity, her arm stretching towards her. Donnie searched his surroundings feverishly, and miraculously spotted the EM gun on a shelf, all the way on the other side of the lab.
Before he could make a run for it, a scream made him swivel on the spot. April was on the floor, hands covering her face, the ghost barely a step from her.
Donnie bolted. "Get away from her!"
The air clung to him like tar, as he desperately pushed forward, driven by April's penetrating screams. Finally he reached her, and he threw himself between her and the spirit in defiance.
The ghost stopped in its tracks and from her glare he knew he was in trouble.
"April, get up!" he yelled over his shoulder. "April!"
But April didn't even seem to hear him. Instead, Donnie felt a burning cold touch on his chest and he fell backwards, tripping over April's legs. His shell hit the wall, the back of his head bouncing against the hard brick. Feeling as though he'd been smashed right through ice into freezing water, he tried to get up, but realized he couldn't move. He threw his head back to see a cadaverous face contorted in rage, inches above him. The woman's long black hair grazed his cheeks. She had him pinned down with insurmountable force.
Donnie gasped. He could feel the woman's hand at his plastron, so frigid it burned through to the flesh underneath. The feeling burrowed deeper, like an icicle through his chest. He felt it tightening around his heart, squeezing. It hurt like nothing he'd ever experienced, and yet he couldn't scream.
He felt lightheaded, and opened his mouth to breathe, but no air came. The hand—was it really her hand inside his chest?—clasped tighter, and his heart hiccoughed, struggling. It was now very clear to Donnie: she wanted him dead.
He was fading. With a sliver of consciousness, he forced his eyes open and looked at his killer, in his gaze a silent plea. The woman's dead eyes bore into his.
But then... her deathly glare flickered, and in it he saw a spark—life, emotion.
The grip loosened, enough that his heart jerked back into gear. He winced at the sensation, and heaved in a lungful. At last the air entered him like a bolt of lightning through his body. Still, it felt like sublime relief.
He noticed the noise around him had subsided somewhat, and with an ounce of curiosity—mixed in with all the paralyzing terror—he looked up again.
The woman's expression had changed, her terrible features softened. She now returned a look of surprise—of bewilderment. And then she spoke in the smallest voice.
"Yoshi."
Donnie didn't have time to react. There was a piercing, booming scream and a blinding explosion of light, and the ghost tumbled backwards off of Donnie. Finally the crushing weight lifted and he could move. Squeezing his eyes closed and covering his aching ears, he pushed his shell back against the wall in an effort to sit up.
It had only lasted three seconds. When the sound receded and the lab was dark once again—a couple of lights flickering dimly above—he opened his eyes.
In the middle of the room, the woman squirmed, hunched over and whimpering. She looked dim and translucent.
Panting, he tried sitting up, and saw April at his side. She was pressing her hands to her temples, recovering from her psychic blast, her teeth bared at the spirit. With a grunt, she turned towards him.
"Donnie! Are you okay?" she cried, her face scrunched and sweaty.
Donnie paused, listening to his own reassuring heartbeat before replying. April's eyes and hands went to his chest, fumbling over his own hand there, as if she wanted to check for injuries. But everything looked perfectly fine there, even though it felt like there should be a big hole.
"I'm good, I'm good," he said weakly, even though he was hardly confident of this, and his heart banged fiercely against his ribs like it wanted out. He could still feel the burning cold of the ghost's touch in every breath he took, and he rubbed his plastron trying to fend off the sensation, to no avail. At least he was alive. "That was just… uh, really unpleasant." Not exactly a lie. But perhaps he should leave out the horrifying details for now. With enormous effort, he managed a tremulous smile. "Are you okay?"
She nodded quietly, eyes like saucers. Then they both turned.
The ghost was silent, rocking pitifully on the spot. Her contours were faded against the background, her figure shimmering dimly by the small red stone lying on the floor. To one side, the tracker was still going full blaze.
A noise at the entrance drew Donnie's attention away from the scene. The door shook violently once. Twice. Someone was outside, and they really wanted in. They would have to wait.
Ignoring the loud bangs, he stared, dumbstruck, at the quivering shadow of a woman. She was a far cry from that smiling girl in the pictures, but… Could it be? Had he heard it right?
"I saw her death," April gulped beside him. "This woman was murdered by Shredder himself."
"More than that," Donnie mustered. "She said 'Yoshi'. I think this is the ghost of Tang Shen."
April was mute as Donnie started heaving himself up. He was hit by a wave of nausea and fell on his knees. She was on him in an instant, grabbing his arm to help him to his feet. The doors shook as the people outside tried to force it open. Now there were voices as well. The blade of a sword slipped through the crack, and prodded at the safety bar. They didn't have much time.
He didn't know what he planned to do, really. But he had to make sure. If this was Tang Shen, he needed to talk to her.
Doing his best to ignore the voices at the door for a little longer, he took one shaky step towards the crouched figure.
"Tang Shen?" he said softly. The woman lifted her face and looked at him in distrust through tangles of black hair. All the while, she kept watching April with glossy eyes full of fear. She seemed so human suddenly...
He used a gentle voice, hands out in a gesture of peace, as though talking down a scared animal. "Tang Shen?"
She didn't reply, but Donnie was sure. It was her. When she started standing up slowly, he could see three deep, parallel gashes on her torso.
Shredder.
Donnie held out a hand behind him, instructing April not to move.
"You can talk to me," he said to the ghost, and then switching to Japanese he asked her, "Why are you here? Do you remember Hamato Yoshi?"
She perked up at the name, looking like she wanted to speak.
But then the lab doors cracked, safety bar defeated, and slid open with a screech. An entire battalion stood at the entrance now, all armed and ready for battle. At the front, Hachisu-no-Hana stood with a look of panic at the scene, then at Donnie and April.
For a few brief moments, nobody moved. The Lotuses stood looking between them and the ghost, waiting for orders. Tang Shen didn't even take her eyes off of Donnie, standing languidly still. Then Hachisu lunged forward, and before Donnie knew what she intended, the red pendant was in her grasp.
"No! Wait!" Donnie cried.
But Hachisu stuffed the pendant in its box, snapped it shut, and then Tang Shen was gone.
The fog dissipated instantly. The lights came on and the dull humming that he'd no longer realized was there suddenly died, leaving behind a grating silence where he could hear each and every ragged breath.
The Lotus leader glowered at Donnie, fire blazing in her eyes.
WHOPS!
What do you know...
Okay, who among you already suspected about that ghost? Be honest!
And what did you think? Remember reviews are writer chow! :D