Disclaimer: I claim no possession of the TMNT, merely my character and this storyline. But if anyone cares, I DO own the movie "Spaceballs". Which, by the by, is a great movie. XD
Thanks to Tewi, Leonardo15, BubblyShell22, Digmon Girl, Ted, and Pi90katana.
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Leo barely had time to close the door behind him before his knees gave out. He collapsed on the floor, breathing shallowly. He strained his ears, but he didn't hear anyone coming up the stairs. I guess they bought it. Raph and I were lucky that Master Splinter was already in his room.
Now that the excitement was over, Leo felt the last of the adrenalin draining from his veins. Groaning as the throbbing returned to his plastron, he eyed the corner of the room that normally held his futon. The only thing he wanted to do now was lie down and go to sleep for about a year; unfortunately, that required moving. A lot of it. As in, get up, get the futon out of the closet, unfold it, set it up, and then go to sleep. The thought of that much movement nearly exhausted him further. Well, sleeping on the floor might not be that bad. He glanced around him. A few feet to his right were his desk and bookshelf, everything orderly and neat. To his left was the small area of mats that he had set up so he could meditate when the dojo was occupied. Perfect. Now if I can just haul my shell over there…
Leo experimentally planted his feet underneath him, but his legs were too shaky. There is no way I'm seriously going to have to crawl over there, right? It's just a few feet; I've walked about a mile already, a few more feet is nothing. However, another futile attempt at standing quickly convinced him that walking wasn't an option. Shell. How am I gonna get over there? I guess I could call Raph…He already knows I'm tired, and I could pretend to call him up here to lecture him. As soon as the thought entered his mind, it was soon followed by a vivid idea of just what his brother would say in such a situation.
…Right, Leo thought. Crawling it is.
This decided, he shifted himself to his hands and knees, shuffling forward a few inches. His arms were decidedly less tired than his legs, so it was fairly easy going. However, if he moved too fast or stretched too far, his stitches would pull unpleasantly. He was reduced to a slow crawl, grumbling over the fact that he was in this position, yet fervently thankful that none of his brothers were here to witness this. I'd never hear the end of it. I'd never even be allowed out of bed ever again.
By the time he made it over to the mat, he was too tired to be angry with his condition. At this point, sleep sounded like the best thing in the world. Wincing at the movements, he propped himself up against the wall and folded his legs into a meditation pose in case anyone came to check up on him. Closing his eyes, he was soon fast asleep.
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Raph replaced the milk carton with unnatural care, trying to make the least amount of noise possible. He'd been straining his ears for the past five minutes, ever since he saw Leo close the door to his room. He was trying to hear anything coming from his older brother's room, and then trying hard to decipher any sound he did manage to hear. So far, he'd only managed to hear one vague thump, and then the rest was drowned out by the sound of Mikey's TV show. Raph couldn't ask him to turn it down, because he knew Mikey would want to know why. And he couldn't very well say "because I want to see if I can hear whether Leo's dead in his room or not". He growled under his breath, upset with the whole situation. He was glad that their ruse had worked; after all, Mikey was oblivious to anything, Splinter was still meditating, and Don hadn't emerged from his lab since they'd returned. But he still didn't like his brother needing help just to walk, let alone need a diversion to make it up the stairs on his own.
"Is there any particular reason you're growling at the refrigerator?" A calm voice interrupted his thoughts.
Looking up, he saw Don leaning against the wall, eyeing him with a bemused look on his face. Raph growled again. There was a knowing look in Don's eye that he recognized, the one he got when he'd solved a challenging problem or figured something out that he'd been working on. And in this case, it was a look Raph didn't like. Shell, he better not've figured anythin' out. I don't mind helpin' Leo, but I ain't takin' no crap 'bout it from Don and Mikey. "I'm just lookin' fer somethin' ta eat."
"Well, you're letting all the cold air out," Don remarked calmly. "At this rate, everything will be rotten before you decide what you want."
Muttering a comment about turtles who thought they knew everything, Raph shut the door. He stalked past his brother, heading towards the dojo to blow off some steam, when a hand caught his elbow. Looking back, he saw that Don had him by the arm. "What? D'ya need somethin', brainiac?"
Don sighed at the nickname. "As a matter of fact, yes. Could you come with me to my lab, please?"
"What for? I was gonna go get a workout," the turtle grumbled. He had a sinking suspicion that he knew what Don wanted, and he was going to do his best to get out of it.
Don leveled a hard gaze at his brother. "Raph." His voice carried a slight warning, as well as a hard tone his brothers rarely heard him use.
Damnit, Raph thought, then sighed. Ah shell, might as well get this over with. "Alright, I'm comin'." Following the brainy turtle into the subway car that served as the lab, he leaned against the doorway and folded his arms. "So what can I do fer ya?"
Don quirked an eye ridge at his brother. "For starters, you can drop the innocent act, Raph. And then you can tell me why you and Leo had to stage a fight to get him into the Lair."
Shell, Raph swore again. Why'd we have ta have a smart turtle? Why couldn't we have just had another Mikey? The thought sent shudders down his spine. Never mind. Joining his brother at the table, he sat down and sighed again. "How'd ya know?"
A satisfied smile crossed Don's face at Raph's unspoken admittance that something was in fact going on. "Well, for starters, there's the fact that Leo gave up on your fight way too quickly. Neither of you ever give up on a fight; normally you just get sick of it and storm out."
Raph shook his head. "When tha shell did we become so damn predictable? If it were anyone else, we'd've gotten away wit' it."
"Yeah, but "anyone else" hasn't been living with you two and watching you fight for 16 years," Don pointed out reasonably. "And considering how you have about three or four fights a week, at 52 weeks in a year, that means approximately-"
"Yeah, yeah, I get tha point," Raph interrupted. "What's tha next thing?"
"The next thing was that Leo looked totally wiped out. I mean, when you guys fight, he normally looks tired to some extent, but then it's just exasperation. The look on his face was out-and-out exhaustion." Don looked at Raph, and the dark look on his brother's features pushed him on.
"After that, there was the fact that it had taken Leo way too long to climb the stairs, especially if he was trying to get away from you. And he was leaning on the wall for support to get down the hall to his room."
Raph pushed up to his feet and paced, the talk of Leo's condition aggravating him. "I told him he wasn't ready," he mumbled, more to himself than to his brother. He glanced up at Don. "What was tha last thing?"
"You."
Don's statement surprised the hotheaded turtle. "What tha shell do ya mean, "me"?"
"I mean how you were acting," Don said. At his brother's confused look, he elaborated. "Even though you were pretending to be mad at Leo and supposed to be "looking for something to eat", your eyes were on Leo the whole time, from the top of the stairs to his door. The last time I saw you look like that was when you were watching him during the ride to April's after he got shot."
Raph's body had been tensing with each word Don spoke, ready to deny every single word of it, but at those last words, all the fight left his body. He returned to his seat beside his brother, emotions he normally refused to show written clearly on his face. "Guess there ain't no gettin' anythin' past you, huh Don?"
Don put a comforting hand on Raph's shoulder. "If it makes you feel any better, I almost didn't figure it out. If I hadn't seen Leo at the top of the stairs, then turned to see you in the kitchen, it wouldn't have fallen into place. And Mikey doesn't suspect a thing." Don watched as feelings chased themselves across his face. "What's wrong, Raph?"
"Whadda ya mean, what's wrong?" Raph snapped. Seeing the hurt look on Don's face, he sighed, shoulders sagging. "Sorry, Donnie. It's just…it ain't s'posed ta be like this. We shoulda been able ta wait 'til he was actually better ta come home, not wait just until he's well enough ta barely walk. But instead, we got some psycho whackbag chick an' her voodoo crap ta deal with too, an' so Leo's gotta have help just ta walk into the Lair. I know Splintah wanted him home, but it just ain't right."
"Why didn't you tell me how badly off he was?"
Raph bit back a groan. Of all the questions he knew his brother would ask, he really didn't want to answer this one. "Don…earlier, with Leo, back at April's place…ya were really messed up about it, bro. I ain't never seen you like that. An' I didn't want ta make it worse. 'Sides, it ain't like he's dyin' or nothin'."
"That's it?" The disbelief and hurt was obvious in Don's voice. "That's your reason? You "didn't want to make it worse"? Let's think about this for a minute, Raph. Let's say, hypothetically speaking, that you and Leo pulled this off, and I didn't know about it. Then, because no one knows Leo's hurt, and you think he's fine just because you two made it home, no one goes to check on him. And he ended up pulling his stitches from overexerting himself too soon, and either his condition just gets worse, or he bleeds to death. Then I find out that I could have helped him if my other brother had told me the truth; but since he didn't want to upset me, he didn't say anything. Do you think I could live with that, Raph? It would have been my fault!"
"That ain't gonna happen, Don, an' even if it did, it wouldn't be yer fault," Raph snapped heatedly.
"But that's how it would seem to me!" Don snapped back. The two glared at each other, then Don broke the eye contact, taking several deep breaths to calm himself. "Knowing that I could've helped him, but that you didn't tell me to spare my feelings…I'd feel like it was my fault for being weak. Like…I should have been stronger, shouldn't have broken down earlier. If I hadn't, you wouldn't have worried about me and would have told me."
"Yer allowed ta be upset, too, Don," Raph said. "And besides, that don't make sense."
"Fine! Then here's an example you might understand," Don retorted, his tone exasperated. "Casey goes out to beat up some Purple Dragons, and doesn't call you because he knows you're upset about Leo getting shot and he doesn't think you'll be able to handle the fight. Then he takes on too many Dragons and either gets hurt or killed. And then you find out why he didn't call you." Don noticed with grim satisfaction that Raph purposefully wouldn't meet his gaze. "Make sense now?"
"…Maybe," Raph admitted reluctantly. The two brothers were quiet for several moments, silent apologies passing between them, before another of Don's questions surfaced.
"Why'd you do it, Raph? Why'd you agree to do that for Leo?"
"I…shell. I just…he…ah, hell if I know." Raph rubbed the back of his head, his frustration evident. "It's just…I know when I get my shell waxed, I don't want nobody seein' me an' thinkin' I need help, especially Leo. An' then I was on the othah side of it; he was th' one who needed help. Th' only diff'rence is he was willin' t'admit it. I know how he feels, 'cause I hate sittin' around doin' nothin' too. It's enough ta make a turtle go stir crazy. So, I helped 'im. That's it."
Don shook his head wryly. "You guys are more alike than you know." When Raph started to protest, Don threw a roll of bandages in his face. "Stuff it, Raph. You guys can't see it, but I can. Trust me. Now, are you going to come with me to check on him, or do you want to go back to sulking?"
The hothead stood silently while Don loaded them both up with medical supplies. "Ya sure we should be checkin' on 'im? We did this 'cause he didn't want nobody seein' him."
"Yeah, well that's too bad," Don replied firmly. "Look, Raph, if Leo's in that bad of shape, we need to check on him. Besides, we won't tell Mikey or Master Splinter, so you don't have to worry. Come on."
Don led the way out of the subway car and into the main part of the Lair. Fortunately, Mikey's attention stayed fixed on the TV. As they climbed the stairs, Raph's heart started to pound a little faster. Dozens of possible scenarios, each worse than the last, began running through his mind. He shoved them away as best he could, telling himself he was being irrational. And yet no matter what he did, one question was stuck in his mind.
Why is it so quiet in there?
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Anger was still faintly pulsing through Don as they padded silently up to the door to Leo's room. Why did they think they had to leave me out of that? Do they really think I couldn't handle it? He was so deep in his thoughts that he didn't notice Raph looking at him. The next thing he noticed was his brother's hand on his arm. Don glanced up at him, his voice still slightly tinged with annoyance. "What?"
"It's not like ya think, Don. It's not that we didn't think ya could handle it, it's jus'…we didn't want you guys ta worry."
When did Raph get so good at reading us? Despite his brother's attempts at an apology, Don couldn't prevent the derisive snort that escaped him. "Didn't want us to worry? Leo got shot, Raph. It's a little late to want to keep us from worrying."
Raph rolled his eyes. "Alright…didn't want ya ta worry any more. It's jus'…when yer an older brother, ya…ya wanna protect ev'rybody in yer family, especially yer younger brothers. Ya don't wanna make 'em worry, or see 'em hurt." He sighed, rubbing the back of his head in aggravation. "I dunno how ta explain this. It's jus'…I guess this is th' only thing Leo an' I have in common. I can't explain it any better'n that. I know you an' Mikey worry too, it jus' seems diff'rent as a big brother."
"If you hadn't noticed, Raph, I am a big brother," Don pointed out.
"I know dat! But…ah shit, nevah mind. Screw this." Raph pushed past Don, taking the lead to Leo's room.
Seeing his brother's frustration, Don relented. He knew how difficult it was for Raph to apologize to anyone, let alone explain himself. Even though they still should have told me, I guess I can see where he's coming from. He caught up with Raph and thumped his brother in the arm good-naturedly. "It's okay, Raph. I…think I understand. Just…next time, let me know, alright?"
Raph returned the punch. "You got it, Don. 'Less a'course it's me, then you ain't gonna hear a thing."
"I wouldn't expect anything else, Raph." As they reached Leo's door, Don shushed Raph, putting his ear to the wood. When he didn't hear anything, he knocked quietly. "Leo? You okay, bro?" The room remained silent. Don glanced at his hotheaded brother, whose worry was obvious in his eyes, even though he tried to keep his fears in check. Turning the knob carefully, the brainy turtle reassured his older brother. "Don't worry, Raph; if he's as tired as you said, he's probably just sleeping." Don pushed the door open hesitantly; despite his words to Raph, he was also concerned about what they might find. And yet what they did find was the last thing he'd expected.
Leo was sitting off to the left, in the corner of his room that he'd rigged up as a mini dojo, sleeping on his meditation mats.
Both Don and Raph heaved a small sigh of relief, then grinned at each other for their reactions. Don beckoned Raph forward, and they knelt next to Leo. They set their supplies down on the floor, and Don carefully looked over Leo. He unwrapped the dressings around Leo's plastron, his lips tightening at the sight of the blood on them. At his gesture, Raph handed him a fresh roll of bandages, already treated with antiseptic. Don wound the bandages around Leo, binding them tightly, but not so tightly as to cause Leo discomfort. The fact that Leo slept through the entire procedure, when he was usually the lightest sleeper of all of them, told the brothers just how tired he really was. After Don secured the bandages, he and Raph moved off a few feet from Leo. They leaned against the wall, watching as their brother slept on.
Don was the first to break the silence. "He's fine. He didn't pull any stitches, thankfully, but he had a little bleeding from all the movement. The only thing that's really wrong with him is it was all too much too soon."
Raph gave another sigh of relief. "Tha's good. I was wonderin', 'cause I ain't nevah seen 'im sleep like dis. He ain't even movin'."
No sooner had Raph finished his sentence than Leo's entire body gave a great jerk. A groan of pain escaped from his lips, and his breath began to come in pants. Before Raph or Don could reach their brother, his right hand grabbed for his side and he fell to the floor.
"LEO!" Both brothers were at Leo's side in an instant.
"Donnie, what's wrong wit' 'im!" Raph asked wildly. His hands were hovering over Leo's body, afraid to touch his brother for fear of hurting him further.
"I…I don't know! He was fine, he was just sitting there! Hold his arms, I have to see if something's wrong with the wound." Don quickly unwrapped the bandages, dreading what he would find, but when the last of the wrappings was pulled away, nothing was amiss. The bullet wound wasn't bleeding, and no stitches had been pulled. "What the shell? There's nothing wrong with his wound, so why…?"
"Donnie…"
Don turned to Raph, who was slightly pale and had an odd look on his face. "What? What is it?"
Raph carefully let go of one of Leo's arms, which had by now stopped moving, and pointed to Leo's side. "That wasn't there before."
Don followed Raph's finger with his eyes, and found himself looking at a large, ugly bruise on his brother's plastron. He wracked his brains, trying to recall if he had noticed any such bruise on his oldest brother earlier. "I don't remember seeing it, either."
"Well, then where tha shell did it come from?"
"How am I supposed to know!" Don asked. "I'm an engineer, not a psychic!"
Leo suddenly jerked and moaned again, his right hand going to his opposite bicep this time. Raph grabbed his hand away, and Don frantically searched his arm, trying to determine the source of the pain. The next thing they saw shocked them both.
As the two turtles watched, a cut formed out of nowhere on Leo's arm, grew, then immediately began to bleed furiously. The sight of blood finally snapped Don out of his trance, and he scrabbled for bandages, winding them tightly around his brother's arm and pressing down firmly.
"Don, what the shell is going on!" Raph demanded.
"I don't know, Raph!" Don replied wildly. "The cut just came out of nowhere! Things like that don't happen, they can't, it's just not possible!" In his anxiety, he applied more pressure to Leo's arm, and the wounded turtle cried out and opened his eyes.
Leo looked at Raph and Don, his eyes strangely unfocused and clouded, then suddenly he mumbled something. As soon as the word left his lips, he closed his eyes again, only to reopen them a second later. This time, however, the haze was gone from his eyes. He groaned, then looked around, focusing on his brothers. "What…? What's going on?"
"Leo!" Raph grabbed his brother and hugged him, then shoved him away. "What tha shell was that all about? Ya tryin' ta give us a heart attack or somethin'!"
"What the shell was what all about? Did I miss something?" Leo's features were openly puzzled.
"Leo, what's the last thing you remember?" Don asked.
Leo's face took on a confused look. "I remember coming in here, and falling asleep…and then I had a dream. There was…it was so weird…there was a woman, I couldn't see her face…but then she was gone. And then there was this man, and he punched me in the side, and then cut my arm with a knife. But…it wasn't me. It was like I was there and saw and felt everything, but it wasn't me…it was such a weird dream."
"Not all of it was a dream," Don interjected. When Leo glanced up at him, confused, Don gestured to the bruise on Leo's side and the bandages on his arm. "The attacks from your "dream" showed results here."
Leo slowly touched the mysterious injuries. "What's going on…?"
Neither of his brothers had an answer for him. All three turtles were silent for several minutes before Don spoke up again.
"Leo. When you were sleeping, right before you woke up, you said something. Do you remember what it was that you said?"
The blue-banded turtle lowered his gaze to the floor, thinking hard. "I don't remember saying anything, but the woman said something, just one word that's been sort of floating around in my head…'vendetta'."
"…That's it," Don suddenly said as he stood, gathering up his supplies. "Raph, help Leo get downstairs. I'll get Mikey and Master Splinter. Meet us on the couch."
"What for?"
"Just do it. We need to figure this out; it's gone on too long." And with that, he was gone.
Raph and Leo stared out the door after their brother, then exchanged looks.
"Do you remember him talking like that before?" Leo asked, bewildered.
"Nuh uh," Raph replied. "But it's gettin' ta be kinda normal now. C'mon, bro, let's haul yer butt downstairs."
Leo snorted. "Are you kidding? After all the trouble we went through just to get me up here in the first place?" They both laughed. "It hardly seems right."
Raph snickered. "What, wouldja rather face tha wrath of Don?"
The injured turtle shuddered. "No, thank you. Knowing my luck, he'd wait 'til I got hurt next time and take it out on me then." He paused a moment, the thought that had been nagging him finally clicking. "Shell. He knows, doesn't he?"
His brother grimaced. "'Bout you an' our little "fight" ta getcha up here? Yeah, he knows. I didn't tell 'im or nothin', he just…"
"Figured it out," Leo finished for him. He sighed. "I suppose we should've known better than to think we could fool him. Alright, let's get going. By the time we get down there, Don will probably have gotten Mikey and Master Splinter."
Raph carefully pulled his brother to his feet and slung Leo's arm around his shoulder. They made their way out of the room and slowly descended the stairs. "Ya feelin' any better?"
Leo shrugged. "A little. It's weird; I've been sleeping, but I feel even more tired than I was."
"Yeah, well, ya weren't exactly out very long. An' from the sounds a' things, ya weren't real quiet even when ya were asleep."
"I know. I sure hope Don's got some answers, 'cause I don't have the slightest clue what's going on."
"That makes two of us, bro." They reached the main floor, and Raph led Leo over to the couch, where the rest of the family was already assembled.
Master Splinter spoke first. "Is something the matter, my sons? Is there something wrong?"
"Uh, I think we're gonna let Donnie take this one, Mastah Splintah," Raph said. "He's kinda th' one who called this little meetin'."
The turtle in question came out of his lab seconds later. "You're all here," he noted curtly. "Good. We've got some things that we need to talk about." He slammed a sheaf of papers down on the coffee table and started shuffling through them rapidly. One paper was grabbed wrong and it sliced along his finger, a small line of blood appearing. "Shell!" Don swore, shoving the papers away from him.
Everyone else in the room was shocked. Of all of the turtles, Don was the one who never swore, not even when he was at his maddest. He raised his hand to swat the papers the rest of the way off the table when a small, furred paw grabbed his wrist.
"Donatello," Splinter said softly, a mild reprimand in his tone. "What is the matter, my son? You seem distressed, and you are not acting like yourself."
Don's hand curled into a fist, then his whole body drooped. He sighed tiredly. "I'm sorry, Sensei. I'm just…frustrated."
Splinter relinquished Don's hand. "Then tell us what it is that troubles your spirit, my son." He sat back his chair, paws resting lightly on his knees as he waited.
Don took a deep breath and began. "Alright. We all know there's been a lot going on lately, and none of it makes any sense. I just keep getting so frustrated, because it has to all be connected somehow, but I just don't know how."
Mikey raised a hand tentatively, as though in class. "Um, why don't you start by filling Leo in with what we know about Iganna?"
"…Oh, right." Don gave Leo a quick run through of what they'd gathered over the past few days. "…It's nothing concrete; it's just a lot of little things that don't add up. This for example." Reaching into his pile, he extracted a few papers. "I took Iganna's last name and looked it up in several different towns and cities in Canada, which is supposedly where she's from. I ran every search I know of, every single one, and nothing came up for the name Triolini. However, when I ran the searches in a few places in Italy…bingo."
"So this tells us what?" Splinter asked.
"It tells us she lied ta us," Raph growled. "I knew there was somethin' screwy wit' dat broad."
"Exactly. Unfortunately, that's the only solid piece of evidence that we've got other than what Master Splinter sensed around Leo. Everything else is just little things; strange things she says, a weird glance, her acting oddly. But Master Splinter…you always tell us to trust our instincts, and mine tell me something's wrong with her."
"I agree with you, Donatello. However, we still do not know what it is that she is doing to Leonardo."
"That's true," Don admitted. "But I think we've got another hint. Leo, tell Mikey and Master Splinter about your dream."
Leo quickly related his dream to his sensei and brother, unwrapping his arm and showing them the cut and the bruise. Splinter's ears and tail twitched with ill-concealed unease as he got up and inspected his son's newest injuries. He returned to his seat silently. The turtles were quiet for several minutes, recognizing that their sensei was deep in thought. After the span of a few moments, Splinter looked up to meet the questioning gazes of his family.
"We must take action," Splinter stated. "This woman is obviously not what she seems, and I fear that she is a threat to our family. There is something going on here that we do cannot explain. Donatello, what have you been able to discover about her?"
"Well, with a little digging into family histories, and some…navigating on the internet, I was able to find a rather interesting article," Don said, diving back into his pile, paper cut forgotten.
"'Navigating'?" Splinter questioned dryly as he raised an eyebrow. "Donatello, one would assume that your…investigative venture was, indeed, legal?"
"Um, yeah, Sensei," Don stammered, a guilty look on his face. "I mean, information is put up on the internet for public use, and once you have, um, access codes to it, then technically acquiring that data is legal…" he finished lamely. At Splinter's disapproving look, Don sighed. "I mastered computers a time ago, Master Splinter," he said, trying to explain himself. "I get bored and I need a challenge. Besides, if it's worth hiding, it's worth knowing."
Splinter sighed, a look of defeat and chagrin on his face. "I understand. Were anyone to ask, I know nothing of how you came by this information…and I do not wish to know."
Raph, Leo and Mikey all snickered. They had known for years that Don oftentimes hacked various networks. The first time he'd been caught, he'd said he'd "stumbled" onto the site by chance. The excuse only worked so many times, and his brothers eventually got the truth out of him. Raph and Mikey were impressed, and although Leo didn't approve as much as they, he eventually came around.
Splinter, however, obviously did not accept the news of Don's "dabbling" as easily as his brothers did.
"So what've ya got, Don?" Raph asked, making a quick diversion for his brother.
Don shot him a grateful look. He handed some of the papers out to his family. "This is a news report from a city in Italy called Forli. It's about Iganna's family."
Raph scanned the sheet, trying to find some pertinent information. He abandoned his search quickly. "Alright, Don, dis is in geek talk. Ya mind translatin' fer us?"
"No problem," Don replied. "It's all about a big incident that happened a few years ago. Iganna's mother was apparently some kind of doctor. Her father had left the family when Iganna was still young. Well, Iganna's mother's practice was going well until suddenly her patients stopped coming. Then, her health began to decline, and she died. Soon after that, there was a massive rash of unusual deaths in their city, and Iganna left the country and arrived in Maine, looking for her father. However, a few months later, there was another series of deaths, and she left Maine and has been living here ever since."
"Okay…" Mikey said slowly, his eyes wide. "That's kinda creepy."
The brainy turtle nodded. "There's more, Mikey. The deaths in Forli were all people that Iganna knew, and many of them were once patients of her mother. But in Maine, they were strangers who, as far as I can tell, had no connection to her."
"So do ya think she killed 'em?" Raph questioned his brother quietly.
"I don't know," Don admitted. "But there are a few more things that don't add up. In Maine, all of the victims were armed. But somehow they all died from wounds that appeared to be from their own weapons, and the only fingerprints on the weapons were those of the owners."
"So why didn't they list the deaths as suicides?" Leo asked.
"Because they couldn't be suicides," Don said. He pulled yet another set of papers out, showing them to his brothers and sensei. "Almost all of the victims died from wounds that would be impossible for someone to inflict on themselves. For example, one was stabbed in the back. Another had broken ribs, and another was strangled."
"But couldn't those be suicides?" Raph inquired. "I mean, if someone was tryin' hard enough…?"
Don shook his head. "These deaths are impossible to be suicidal. No one can reach behind their back and stab themselves with enough strength for it to be fatal, and people can't break their own bones very easily. As for strangling…it's impossible for someone to strangle themselves. Even if someone had the strength for it, as soon as they went long enough without oxygen, they'd pass out and their grip would automatically loosen, thus keeping them from dying."
Leo spoke up. "So the question facing us is how were these people killed if no one touched them?"
"No one knows. That's partly why I had to…search for this info," Don said, changing his word choice after a glance at Splinter. "The police had no idea how to explain these deaths, so they buried the records."
"So what all do we now know about Ms. Triolini, Donatello?" Splinter asked, having sat quietly throughout Don's whole explanation.
Don counted off the facts. "We know Iganna lied about her origins and is really from Forli, Italy. We know her mother died mysteriously, followed by several people close to Iganna's family. We know she left not only the city, but the country, and was possibly tied to the deaths here as well. And we know she's somehow connected to Leo, too."
Raph snorted and threw his copies of the papers back onto the table. "So basically we know a whole lotta nothin'. None of dis helps us at all. We don't even know if she's tha one dat killed 'em."
"…That's not exactly true, Raph."
All heads turned to Don.
"Whadda ya mean, Don?" Mikey asked.
"I…don't know anything for sure," Don began, speaking slowly. "But when Raph and I were upstairs with Leo, before he woke up, he said the woman in his dream said something. Just one word, 'vendetta'. In English, it means "grudge"."
Leo was the first one to catch the emphasis Don placed on "English". "It means something out of English, too, doesn't it?" he inquired. "Like…something in Italian?" Don stared at his hands for several moments, before looking up to meet the gaze of his brother and nodding. Leo prodded his brother. "So in Italian it means…"
Don filled in the gap with a quiet word.
"'Revenge'."
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A/N: Oooo! So suspenseful! But never fear, good readers, some answers will be coming soon! I don't want to give you guys ulcers from all the suspenseful tension. :D On another note…
Ack! I am soooo very sorry that this is so late. School has been biting my butt again, and I've had another deadline to meet alongside that of this story. And unfortunately, school has to come first. I feel so bad that this is so unbelievably late, but I needed the time. And at least it was long! This chapter was a mean one to write, especially for hashing out all these disturbing revelations. But hopefully it paid off. I'm going to try my hardest to get the next chapter out soon, but I can't make any guarantees. Fortunately, I know what I want to happen in the next chapter, so I won't have to take the time to plan it. Please bear with me, and thank you all for being so patient and for sticking with my story. I really appreciate it. Look for the next chapter hopefully sometime next week. Thanks again, and adios for now!
