Occultish Occurences

Chapter Four

"Holy shit, what happened?!"

Leonardo heard his youngest brother's sudden uncharacteristic cursing, but his body told him it was too early to get up and he kept his eyes closed.

"Leo, are you okay?"

Three hours of sleep, yeah I'm just fuckin' peachy, Leo groaned, but he just nodded. "Yeah, I'm alive. Raph just tried to kill me last night, that's all."

"Kill you?" That was Donatello's voice. "Why?"

And it looks like I'm only gonna get three hours. Leo sighed and pushed himself up to a sitting position, struggling to shake the sleep out of his head. "It...made a lot more sense last night. Go ask him. He could probably explain it better than me." A stray thought entered his head and he looked up. "Wait a sec. What time is it?"

"Seven," Mike answered.

Leonardo got up and headed to Raphael's door, but he didn't knock. Instead he stood there for a moment, just listening. After a few seconds, he heard Raphael moving quietly about and he nodded to himself. Raph's awake. Good. He can move during the day. He sighed and headed to the kitchen. "It's gonna be a bad day, I just know it," he grumbled.

"Your argument last night with Splinter wasn't about me, was it?"

He looked into the kitchen and spotted Lotus staring irately at the coffee maker, her hair slightly disheveled and her eyes as unfocused as his. Apparently she wasn't a morning person. "No, just a lecture about how I shouldn't use my new talents."

She smirked as he sat down. "That's going to be hard since they include instant healing. Why wouldn't he want you to use them?"

"He thinks they could be evil, or sent by demons or something...I'm not sure." Leonardo grabbed a coke can out of the fridge and popped it open. "He thinks my having them could be part of a finely orchestrated plot."

"A conspiracy theory?" she smiled.

"Something like that."

"But if that was true, that means leaving April and me alive would be part of the plot, and they seemed quite intent on otherwise. Plus, why would they give you an ability to heal?"

"I did get one new weakness," he said softly. "I'm probably vulnerable to silver now."

"But you don't know for sure," she said, sitting down with her coffee. "How will you know if you don't experiment?"

"True...that's what I've been thinking." He looked over at his siblings as they waited for Raphael to come out. "I don't want to screw up because I didn't know my real limits."

"Then you'll have to practice them without him knowing," she whispered.

Leonardo nodded. "I still don't understand why he didn't want me to use them. If he was so set against it, why didn't he tell Mike and Donatello to quit testing their abilities last night?"

"They haven't tried to kill each other?"

He smirked. "True, but Raph and I are always at each other's throats."

"Maybe he is afraid of what these abilities could do for you."

He looked up in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"If you can shapeshift at will...I mean...what are your limits to altering your appearance?" she asked.

He breathed deep as he understood. Could he look human? "I don't know...I only tried two shapes last night...I don't know how far I could go. I have no idea what my abilities are now." He glanced back at her. "Did you hear anything besides the argument last night?"

She shook her head. "No, you and Splinter woke me up. Why?"

"Because my fight with Raph didn't sound all that quiet to me. I wonder if our hearing's been improved, too."

"You must have been silent. I'm an extremely light sleeper."

"So's just about everyone in the house," he said.

Suddenly voices erupted from the living room. "Look, I don't wanna talk about it, all right!"

"But you attacked Leo!"

"So what, I've done that before!"

"You were trying to kill him!"

"Yeah, and I've tried that before, too!"

Leo sighed and finished off the soda. "So...how was your night?"

Lotus shrugged. "Not so bad...I did find a few flaws with your overall security, but since you're all ninjas, I figure you have those covered."

"Probably not," he admitted. "Sometimes I think the best defense this place has is that it's so hard to find." He narrowed his eyes. "And when did you go searching around for holes in the defense?"

She smiled and waved her hand. "Oh, just a habit I picked up. I've been on the lookout for easy or good marks for so long, it's second nature."

"Look, I'm not gonna bite you, so quit looking at me like that!"

"Raph, you were looking at me funny."

"You're imagining things! I wasn't even looking at you!"

"Can you blame him, Raph? You are a vampire."

"Yeah, and you're a wizard. You could probably turn us into toads or something, and you're worried about me?"

"I would never--hey...I probably could, couldn't I?"

"Great, Raph, just give him ideas..."

Lotus gazed over at the squabbling siblings. "Are they always like this?"

Leo leaned back in his chair and sighed. "No, they're usually worse."

April suddenly popped out from the bedroom door and glared at them. "Will you guys pipe down? You're like little children."

"We are not!" they all chorused together without meaning to.

"You're worse than Shadow when she's fussy!" April snapped, ducking back into the room.

Silence.

Mike looked over at the kitchen. "Leo, April just called us names!" he said in his best whiny voice, smirking.

"She was being honest," he replied without looking back.

Raph turned to the closed door. "April, will you at least concede that I'm more mature than Mike?"

"No, you're both acting like brats."

Donatello laughed. "She's got you two pegged."

"And you--" April said, looking out again, "don't go trying any spells out on anyone, you hear me? Bad enough you like to blow things up, but now you don't even need chemicals to do it!"

"Hey!"

Raph snickered. "That's okay, he never gets his equations right without a computer."

"Leo, could you spare just a couple of minutes to mess with Don's computer?" Mike asked.

"Don't you touch that computer!" Donatello yelled.

"Leave me out of this," Leo said.

"What about Donatello's computer?" Lotus asked.

Leo groaned lightly and shrugged. "Just that every time I touch that stupid thing, it crashes. It's a strange gift, but now I'm not allowed five feet from Don's lab."

"Hmm..." she smiled slyly. "There are a few computer-controlled security systems I'd like for you to visit with me."

"I doubt my son has time for such things," Splinter said, coming in.

Lotus blushed and lowered her head. Leonardo kept his face emotionless and didn't let his master see how angry he was that he'd eavesdropped on their conversation.

"I will need to see everyone in the living room," he said to them. Watching as they got up, he followed them into the next room.

There was a tension in the room that everyone could feel, but only three of them knew where it was coming from. Everyone sat in a semicircle around the master, April and the younger siblings together, and further to the side, Leonardo and Lotus each occupied one arm of the sofa, neither of them really sitting.

"So what is it?" Mike asked, oggling the broken statue in Splinter's hands.

Splinter threw a quick glance to the side, which Leo and Lotus pretended not to notice. "It is a kind of key holding a door between dimensions open. I am fairly certain this is where those creatures you fought came from. I believe that if all four pieces are reunited, the key might seal itself and the dimension will close off again."

"So we've gotta go hunt for the other two pieces?" Raph asked. "Sounds pretty straight forward."

Splinter nodded succinctly. "However, even if we know how to stop this, we do not have very much information. We do not know who has caused this, what their purpose is, or even how they did it."

"It's obvious they're either evil or stupid," Don said.

"Cool, it's like Hellraiser, huh?" Mike grinned.

They all stared darkly at him.

"What?" he said. "It is."

"While we are discussing evil," Splinter said, "there is also the question of your...new abilities. I have seen each of you using them, some more than others. I must ask that you do not use them lightly. In fact, it would be preferable if you did not use them at all."

"But why?" Mike whined. "They're so cool!"

"Do you know where they come from?" Splinter asked.

Not noting the edge in his master's voice, Donatello nodded eagerly. "Yeah, from the creatures we killed!"

Splinter sighed. "And were those creatures good?"

Mike shook his head. "No, they were--oh...I get it."

Splinter smiled in satisfaction. "Exactly, and while these powers do not make you evil, they might have side effects we cannot know about."

Don't know 'till you try, Raph thought.

Leonardo and Lotus hid their skepticism.

Donatello and Michaelangelo immediately nodded obediently, while Raphael grudgingly agreed as well. With their eyes averted, however, only Splinter saw the slight tilt of Leonardo's head, indicating that he understood what the master meant but didn't agree. Not inclined to let the eldest speak and possibly sway the younger sons, he let it slide. "In any case, we have to get the other shards back together. They longer they are apart, the more dark magick will come through."

"You mean more big monsters?" Mike asked.

"Exactly."

"And whoever opened that gate will get stronger," Leo said.

"But how do we find him?" Raph asked. "He could be anywhere."

"He or she," Leo said, thinking. "Actually, that's easy. It'll be fighting whoever it is that's hard."

"I don't get it," Mike said, playing with a string of mist and not noticing the frustrated look Splinter shot him.

"Well, all of this magick is going from that gate to the warlock, so we just have to--"

"--follow the stream of negative energy back to him." Donatello said. "I can do that."

Splinter just sighed. It's like telling a child with cookies not to eat any. "If you must," he conceded. "But be careful."

"Where do we start looking?" April asked.

"You don't," Leo said. "You're not going back up until its all clear again."

She pretended to be upset, but her slight smile betrayed her relief. "Well, if I must. I guess I'll just keep an eye on things from down here."

"Lotus," Don suddenly said, "where were you when the statue exploded?"

"Not too far outside the museum. Probably only a block away." She shook her head to herself. "Next time I'll park my stupid bike closer."

Donatello wasn't listening to that last part, however. "All right, then that's probably where we should start. There might be some residual traces of magic there, I might be able to follow it."

"Get ready to go, then," Leo said. "We'll head out in a few minutes."

Raphael gave him a worried glance. "In the sunlight?"

Silence.

Leonardo nodded. "We have to find out if you're vulnerable to it. If it hurts you, you'll have to stay underground during the day." He shrugged. "Actually, we might staying down here more than usual now."

"In case those things move around during the day, too?" Mike asked.

Don leaned back, still keeping a grip on his staff. "Hmm...good idea. If we got these powers so easily, who knows what might happen if we got more added on?"

Splinter's eyes opened wide. He hadn't though of that one.

"I doubt that you could add another power," Lotus said. "You might just switch out for the new one."

"Or nothing at all might happen." He twirled his staff a bit. "Maybe I could find a way to make a shield..." Splinter suddenly sighed, making Donatello smile sheepishly. "Oh yeah. Forgot. Sorry."

"In any case," Splinter continued, "if you can follow this magic stream, do not confront whoever you find at the end. We must have more information before you attack."

Sensing that was the wrap up, Leonardo nodded and stood straight. "Get ready. We leave in five minutes."

While Donatello and Mike went to their rooms to gather their weapons, Leonardo ducked into his own room to grab his sword, even though he had a feeling he wouldn't be using it. Deciding not to bring any daggers or smaller weapons, he turned to find himself staring at Raphael.

"Raph?"

His sibling crossed his arms and tilted his head, coping the usual "attitude" position. "Just for the record, I don't like the whole 'go out during the day' idea. It's like you're just asking to get us seen."

Leo shook his head. "Raph, last night there were explosions, power outages, and monsters. How many people do you think will be walking around in plain sight?"

Raph looked away. "I still don't like it."

Leo smirked. "Don't worry. I doubt you'll explode if sunlight hits you."

"Prick," Raph muttered, turning on his heel.

Leo noticed something and hissed out a warning. "Raph, you need to bring your sais."

Raphael glanced at Splinter to make sure the master wasn't listening, then looked back at Leo. "I know I only got one night in," he whispered, "but I prefer my own claws now."

"But--"

"It's my choice, Leo."

"I know!" Leonardo snapped, keeping his voice low. "But I don't need that rat breathing down my neck about anything right now."

Raphael blinked. That...rat? "Your sword...?"

Leonardo shrugged. "Same deal. Just for show now."

"Fine." And he disappeared into his room.

No one seemed surprised when Lotus joined them. What really caught their attention was the lack of noise they heard from above. The streets were empty when they came up. Raph came up last, putting his left hand in the sunlight that streamed through the open manhole. When he didn't burst into flames, he followed the others up. There were a few cars and bikes abandoned in the middle of the pavement, as well as an overturned bus. A smoking crater occupied the area the alley had once been, and when Donatello looked in, he found nothing but ashes and charred pavement.

"Damn, Donny," Mike whistled. "What'd you do? Drop a nuke?"

Donatello nodded once. "Yup. Energy equals matter times the speed of light squared."

"Uh, yer staff is glowing," Raph said.

Everyone backed away a few steps when they saw the light get brighter.

"Gah! Zero! Zero!" After his frantic shouts, the light faded and dissipated.

Leo just shook his head. "How about not saying any math unless you mean it?"

Don smiled sheepishly and sighed. "Gotcha."

"How far to the museum?" Lotus asked, her hand on the dagger strapped to her hip. "Will we make it?"

A loud howl echoed from out of sight in reply. They all looked around, putting their backs together.

"I'd hate to find out," Raph muttered. "Can't we just look for that energy crap from here?"

All of them looked at Donatello.

"If I'm working on that," he mumbled, "I'll be wide open if something attacks."

"Scaredy-cat," Raph said.

"Well, that's what we're here for," Mike said.

Lotus looked around and spotted a fire escape ladder on the side of a building across the street. "Maybe we'd be a little safer above ground."

Leonardo followed her look. "At least we could see better," he agreed. "Let's go."

They all moved to the edge of their street, still concealed by the one standing shop as they glanced up and down the street. Silently agreeing to go at once, they raced to the other side where Lotus jumped on top of a closed dumpster and jumped again, grabbing the last rung of the ladder and pulling it down with her weight. Michelangelo went first, followed by Donatello and Lotus, who turned back when she heard the ladder clang up behind her.

Still on the pavement, Raphael and Leonardo were both staring at the brick wall.

"Think you can?" Leo asked.

Raph shrugged. "Dracula could do it."

"A few days ago I'd have argued with that logic."

Raphael stepped closer and lay his hands on the brick, trying to drag them back down. Instead he found himself coming up off the ground until he clung to the wall like a human...turtle fly. He grinned at his brother. "Race ya up."

Leo narrowed his eyes at the challenge. Shadows swirled around his body as he started the change, and Raphael took the moment to get a head start. Halfway up the wall, a dark blur moved up through the air before latching onto the wall only inches from him.

"Nice jump," he admitted.

Looking more like a cat save for the glowing eyes, Leonardo winced, flattening his furry ears along the back of his head. "It's brutal on the claws."

Raph spared one hand and showed the palm, which had several scrapes and nicks. "Maybe brick's harder than other stuff."

Continuing their climb, Raph started notice that his brother was not as black as he'd previously thought. In fact, when the light hit the fur in just the right way, an entirely different color shimmered before fading again.

"Holy shit, Leo, yer green!"

Leonardo paused and blinked at his brother. "Uh, so are you."

"No, man, yer fur!" Raphael couldn't help his laughter, and his hands slipped a little on the bricks. "It's green!"

Leo's eyes widened and he looked at his now five clawed hands. "It is not! It's black!"

They finally came over the top and sat down on the edge, not noticing how their siblings were staring.

Raphael shook his head. "Nope, it's green. Granted, it ain't neon or nothing, but more like moss green."

Leo just glared for a moment. "Fine," he said at last. "So it's dark green. Big deal."

Raph snickered and looked away. "Yeah. No biggie."

Behind them, Mike shook his head in disbelief and sat down on a nearby vent. "Whoa. Now that's something you don't see every day."

Lotus smiled and stared at Donatello. "Feel safer up here?"

Don had to tear his gaze away from his brothers and back to the task at hand. "Yeah...um, let's see. All I have to do is light up any residual energy floating around here. What's a good light equation?" He looked up and met four blank stares. "I guess I'm on my own with this."

He walked to the edge of the building and looked over, holding his staff up in the air. "Okay then. I'll just start out small. (A/B·X/Z)%."

Lotus stared as she sat down beside Leonardo. "That's small?"

Raph shrugged. "I think he's just showing off."

A faint white light poured from the top of Donatello's staff and trailed down the side of the building, dissipating into the air. Don frowned and narrowed his eyes.

"Maybe there's nothing here," Mike said.

"There's gotta be something," he argued. "Those things were running around here last night, so there should be some kind of residue, even if it's just the leftovers from my explosion."

"Maybe you started out too small?" Raph said.

"A booster?" Don nodded. "It could work."

"Don't go overboard," Leo said.

"Relax," he said, waving him down. "I know what I'm doing."

Raphael began to edge away. "Y'know, every time he says something like that..."

Leonardo nodded and moved with him. "Something blows up."

Mike hid behind the air vent and looked around from the relative security.

"X2!" Donatello cried, waving his staff around. More light poured out, and after a moment he could see a reddish haze, like fog, floating around the streets. A thick cloud of it filled the crater. "Yes!" But his shoulders dropped when he saw how it faded along the edges until he couldn't see any more. "Well, this just needs more power."

Mike left the vent and joined his siblings on the first level of the fire escape. Four sets of eyes blinked over the concrete edge.

"X9x!"

Light practically exploded from the staff, illuminating huge swaths of red energy in the street and wisps of it in the air. Donatello cackled with glee as the paths grew stronger, but he had a pretty good feeling that the magick wouldn't be showing up over the entire city. But he could fix that.

"Xx, X0!"

The loud boom made everyone cringe, and the next thing they saw was Donatello as he was thrown across the roof, where he slammed into the air vent and came to a rest, smoke coming from his shell and staff. His eyes were wide in surprise, but now they could see even stronger red paths along the ground and air. They climbed back up over the edge and ran to his side, first to see if he was hurt and then to smugly assert that he had indeed blown something else up.

While his siblings checked him over, Lotus walked to the roof's edge and gazed at the red swirls beneath them. The strongest one ran down the street and disappeared, and another streamer moved in the same direction but rose into the air like a floating ribbon. That one veered to the other side, away from the ground streamer. "It looks like there are two main paths," she called over her shoulder. "One through the air and one along the ground."

"I guess we'll have to split up," Raph said and smirked at his brother. "Beat ya to it."

Leonardo ignored the comment. "Think you can turn into a bat?"

Raphael's smirk faded. "I don't know. The other guy did..."

"Well, try it."

Raph looked up at him. "How do you change? Did you, like, concentrate hard?"

Leo got a very confused look on his face. "I don't now. Each time I change, I just...do."

His brother looked around, concentrated, thought about it, concentrated again, thought about it some more...

"Raph, it's not rocket science!" Leo sighed. "If I can do it, you can do it."

"I dunno which muscles to flex," he grumbled.

"I have an idea," Mike grinned.

"Uh oh," Raph worried.

"Relax, it'll work, trust me!" Mike stood at the edge that opened to the alley. "Come here."

At Leonardo's non-committal shrug, Raph joined his brother on the edge. "Yeah?"

Mist started to build up around Mike's ankles and drift down to the ground, just in case he was wrong, but Raphael didn't notice. "Okay, close your eyes..."

Raphael complied. "Uh huh..."

"...think of a happy thought, and fly!" And with that, he roughly shoved his brother off the roof.

"Aaah!" Raphael cried, opening his eyes and spreading his arms out, doing his best to flap them.

"Mike!" everyone on the roof yelled.

The youngest noticed that his victimized brother was getting rather close to the bottom. "Geez, I guess I'd better break his fall..."

Halfway to the ground and not knowing that his brother could keep him from hitting, Raph realized that if he didn't do something now, he was going to be green ooze on the pavement.

So he did something.

A large bat soared up out of the alley and into the air, did a quick loop de loop, and promptly dive bombed Michelangelo, who dropped down and covered his head. The bat emitted its harsh battle cry, a shrill shriek, and came back for another pass. Lotus ducked behind he crumpled vent and hid behind Donatello.

"Enough," Leo said. "He got you to change, didn't he?"

The bat considered that, and in mid-flight, broke off the attack to land beside Mike.

"All right, now what?" Don asked.

"You three can fly. So you get the high road. Lotus and I'll take the low road."

Michelangelo sat up and eyed his batty brother. "And we'll reach Scotland before ye!"

"Keep your communicators on," Leo said. "Call if you see anything weird."

"Does Raph count?"

The bat scratched Mike with a wing tip.

"Ow! Leo, he could have rabies!"

"If he bites you, you'll probably get something besides rabies," Leo sighed. "No matter what you find, we'll group again at noon at Central Park."

"If it's safe," Lotus added.

"Then let's get going," Don nodded, standing up. He held his staff out horizontally and straddled it, bringing his ankles up over the back as if he were riding a narrow ninja motorcycle.

"Cool," Mike said, fading to a purple figure surrounded by mist. He swirled up into the air, followed by the large bat. "Hey, Raph, did ya notice yer green?"

Watching them leave, Lotus stood next to the large, dark greenish werewolf and gazed over him. "Where'd you put your swords?"

"Dropped them off before I got out of the sewer. I'll pick 'em up later. Ready?"

She smiled and held her hands out. He easily swept her up, cradling her in one arm as he started running over the rooftops in the opposite direction.

"Tell me if you notice anything."

"I will. How long do you think this trail runs?"

"No idea. Hopefully we won't meet too many demons and other odd creatures on the way."

TBC...