Chapter 15 The Trial of Air

Leonardo stopped short as soon as he crossed the threshold. He was back in the lair. Puzzled, he looked around. Michelangelo was sitting on the sofa watching the television. Donatello was working quietly at his computer, and Raphael was reading the latest sports magazine sprawled out on the rug.

Splinter was standing in the doorway of the dojo. "Welcome back, my son," his sensei said. He clapped his hands twice alerting the others. "Come, it is time to practice."

Without a word of protest or complaint the others stopped what they were doing and joined Splinter and Leonardo in the dojo.

Something is wrong, Leonardo thought to himself. He wasn't sure why he felt that way, but something was itching him under his shell, and that usually meant he was overlooking something.

They began their katas. For a few minutes Leonardo went along with it, still wondering what was wrong with this picture. When suddenly he had it.(9)

There were absolutely no distractions.

Of course there weren't supposed to be distractions, but between Michelangelo and Raphael they couldn't go five minutes without some form of disruption. Sometimes Michelangelo would fidget, or his stomach would growl. Raphael would hit Michelangelo for something almost a minute to the hour, but right now they had gone on for fifteen minutes with nothing of the sort going on.

Finally he couldn't stand it any longer. "This isn't right," Leonardo said facing them all. "What's going on here?"

His three brothers and sensei looked at him oddly. "Aren't you happy Leo?" Michelangelo asked?

"Is this not what you wanted?" Splinter asked.

What I wanted? There was definitely something about this that wasn't right.

"What does what I want have to do with this?" Leonardo asked suspiciously. "Weren't we supposed to be helping Mikey's friend Lillian and the mermaids?"

"Mermaids?" Michelangelo and the others laughed. "Bro, there's no such thing as mermaids."

"Mermaids are just a myth," Donatello added.

Now Leonardo knew that this wasn't real. There was no imagining that feeling that he had since they set foot inside of the mermaid's stronghold. "This is the myth!" Leonardo lashed out at the illusion. "None of this is real! I can still feel that I'm in the mermaid's temple! Now stop this right now and let me go!"

Suddenly the illusion melted into the mists of the room. Looking about Leonardo now saw that he was in a strange corridor of white crystal. It was hard to focus on any particular thing since the walls, the ceiling, the floors were all white. There was a soothing constant breeze in the room. As he listened to the breeze whistle through the hall, he could hear it whispering to him.

Go back to sleep, dream sweet dreams. Everything you wish you can have.

It was a very sweet seductive song, but Leonardo didn't have any trouble fighting it off a second time. "You can't fool me like that!" He said. I don't know what you're trying to do to me, but you're not keeping me here!" He drew his katana as if expecting a fight, and with it ready in his hand, he moved down the corridor.

A few yards down Leonardo caught up to the odd female ninja who lead the Foot Tech Amazons. She was just standing there in the hall looking up at the sparkling white walls as if mesmerized, and swaying to the melody of those bewitching winds.

Leonardo vaguely remembered Michelangelo warning him not to go down this corridor. Now he knew why. Obviously the chamber at the end of this hall held something very important. The mermaids were protecting whatever it was with a very clever trap.

Well that neutralized her quite effectively, Leonardo thought. All he had to do was find his way out of the passage, and alert the mermaids that their trap had caught one of the leaders of the Foot Amazons. There was a door in front of him which opened easily. Before him, lay a passage of swampy, muddy sand, about a hundred yards long.

Leonardo moved past the enthralled Foot, and a wave of pity flowed over him. He certainly didn't like the mermaid and their tricks, and yet he was willing to leave this young woman to their mercies. Leonardo sighed. As much as he didn't like to do it, he knew he was going to have to free the girl, and take her with him.

With a heavy sigh Leonardo shook the girl. "Come on wake up," he said. The girl blinked, and shook her head slightly as she came out of the trance. She looked about, and her eyes began to clear, but she shook her head instead , and closed her eyes again. "No," she muttered. "This isn't what I want!" To Leonardo's surprise she actually tried to get back into the dream.

"Wake up!" Leonardo said again shaking her harder. "What you're seeing isn't real! It's a mermaid's illusion!"

This time the girl did wake. On seeing Leonardo her hand instantly went to her belt where her weapon was kept. Leonardo had been prepared for that. "Looking for this?" He said as he held the razor sharp manriki gusari high. "Do you really think I'm so stupid that I won't disarm you before snapping you out of that spell?"

"What do you want with me?" She asked. Leonardo could almost sense her fear. She had been ruthless to him when he was her captive. He could only imagine what she thought he was going to do to her.

"I want you to come with me," Leonardo said. "As much as I don't like you, I like mermaid head games even less. "I wasn't just going to leave you here under their spell. You are my prisoner, but we're going to get out of here, together."

He still had his sword drawn and he was pointing it right at her. The ninja looked at the blade then bowed her head in defeat. "As you say, turtle."

"Good," Leonardo said not dropping his guard for a second. "Then let's go."

"Leo? LEO!" Raphael continued to bang against the opaque wall with his sai. He couldn't even chip the stone.

"Raph!" Michelangelo called to his brother. When Raphael ignored him he finally pulled his brother around and forced Raphael to look at him. "Raph, you can't reach him! That's all there is to it! We have to find Benten to see what we can do to get him out of there."

"Wait a minute, Mikey," Donatello said concerned. "What's going on here? Why did that doorway turn to marble when Leo went inside?"

Michelangelo placed his hand gently on the marble wall. "I'm still trying to figure out how Leo got in. This door isn't supposed to let more than one person in at a time! "

"Where is he?" Raphael demanded.

Michelangelo took in a deep breath. "That hall leads to the healing waters, but you have to pass a trial or something to get there."

"You have to pass a lot of trials before you get there," Sylvia said, poking her head up from out of the water. She hopped out of the pool and joined them at the door. "I mean, you can't get out until you do."

"What are these trials about?" Donatello asked.

Sylvia shrugged. "I don't know. I never did it. I'm just a kid." She shot back.

Before they could even ask him, Michelangelo said, "I never did the trials either, dudes, and anyone I ever asked always told me it was too personal to talk about!"

"You mean you don't know what's happening to Leo right now?" Raphael asked. Sadly, Michelangelo shook his head no. "So what are we gonna do?"

"All we can do is go talk to Sylvia's grandmother," Donatello said. "She has to know how to get Leo out of there."

"I hope so," Michelangelo said. The fact that he was worried didn't make Raphael or Donatello feel any better.

Raphael bit his lower lip and sighed. It wouldn't do to yell at Michelangelo. It wasn't his fault that Leo got himself caught in something like this. He only wished that Leonardo had stayed with Splinter. Finally, he said to the others, "Well what are we waiting for?" He gestured for Sylvia to take the lead. "Lead on, small fry."

Sylvia glared at him, but didn't argue as she led the way to the great hall.

Coming Soon Chapter 16 Trial of Earth

"Stop it, turtle! Stop it now!"

The female ninja's voice cut through his despair. Before he could address her she reached out and slapped him across his face hard once.

"Stop thinking those things, turtle! Snap out of it!"

The blow startled him. He shook his head out and suddenly saw that he was up to his knees in the muck. The ninja girl was before him grabbing on to his shell. "Come on turtle! You have to fight it!"

Did he want to fight it? If he sank below the mud would anyone really care? As much as the girl was pulling at him he felt himself sink deeper into the mud.

"Stop thinking that way!" She demanded. "The more unhappy you are the faster you sink! Don't you want to get out of here?"

"You don't understand," Leonardo said full of remorse. "I let Mikey down! I let them all down! I let my fears get the best of me!"

The ninja laughed at him and shook him harder. "Do you think you are not doing so here? Giving in to your doubts? If you sink all the way into the mud turtle, you will never free your brothers from this place! You will never defeat the Foot Tech Amazons. They will take over this place, destroy your friends and family, and I shall escape from you."

That got Leonardo angry. He pushed her down into the mud, and tried to draw his sword on her, but he found that she had taken them while he was sinking into the mud, and they were about a foot away from him. She had also retrieved her own weapon from his belt.

"I am not such a fool as you believe." She said mischievously.