Turtlefreak121: (rolls eyes) Okay - I knew I was going to be gone all weekend so I posted this just as quickly as I could... While being a complete idiot of course. (sigh) How am I going to be an actual author someday when I'm so unorganized... Maybe I should give myself OCD... (thinks about it) Okay, never mind - I'll just work on being organized. And while I'm doing that, Thanx to all who reviewed!

The Dark Half

Chapter Eight

By Turtlefreak121

Disclaimer: I don't own the TMNT.

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Writing on the Wall

Leo quickly opened his eyes - sweat penetrated his brow like large bullets. His heart raced, he felt a rush of coolness in his body, and he suddenly found himself facing the sewer door. But he hadn't moved from his bed since 'talking' to that voice. How was it that he was on the lower level of the lair? Another shiver took hold of his body. Someone...something had moved his body for him. And that scared Leo more than any voice.

He looked to his left and then to his right. The lair was eerily quiet - his family was still looking for Michelangelo.

Feeling a slight pain in his left wrist and looked down to see his hand bleeding - he had cut himself. Cut himself with what? His swords? But his brothers took his swords...

They are returned...

Leo's eyes opened again after the voice had stopped. He hadn't even known he had closed them. Suddenly, he was very woozy and he couldn't help but stumble. This voice was so inhuman that it hurt his head to listen to it - it was like the rustling of sharp twigs against a glass window. It was unbearable - especially when it was in your head.

Slowly, he turned his head and dropped his jaw in shock. There were his katana - on his shell, like they were prepared to go! And they were...he could feel them ready. As a swordsman, he always was in tuned with the spirit of his blades, but this was the first time he felt an urge like this. It was nearly irresistible - exciting...

"I have to find Michelangelo!" he told himself.

As he opened the door, he suddenly felt that that was not his mission after all. Instead of looking to the direction that he had sensed Michelangelo had gone past, his head turned the other way.

"They'll find him," he said confidently.

After all, the voice had said that they would find him. Find him at their home - whatever that meant. And even though the voice was irresistible, terrifying...inhuman - he trusted it. He trusted it more than anything in this world he had yet to see. He knew it was true.

I am you...

This time, Leo nearly collapsed. He quickly caught the edge of the sewer door and was able to hold onto his head which was whirling with confusion and pain. It took him a moment to focus his eyes once more and then he was able to shake the strange feeling off.

"Stop that..." he growled at the voice.

No response - just the way Leo wanted it. He wanted control over this - he was by no means a control freak, but there was no way he would allow something that could endanger his family to have the upper hand. That was unacceptable!

Slowly, with a growl in his throat, he started in the opposite direction of where he knew his family was searching. Of where he knew they would find their brother. And...of where he feared they would find the truth before him.

No, Leonardo had a separate mission - one that he knew would be deadly, and one that he hoped would end all of this...

"Max..." he growled under his breath.

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"MIKEY!" Raph called out into the darkness as he threw himself into the fastest run of his life. His feet flew beneath him as his breath shakily blew around him. His eyes narrowed as he raised his head and called out again. "MIKEY! SAY SOMETHIN' BACK!"

Don ran closer to Splinter. "Mikey!" Don yelled in deep worry.

"Michelangelo!" Splinter called.

Taking in every detail more appropriately than his brother or master, Don found some clues that Michelangelo had indeed come through here. A set of two-toed foot prints could be made out in dirt of the sidewalk from when the sewers had over flooded. He had pointed them out to Raph and Splinter earlier and enlightened their hopes. Now, however, Don was noticing two sets of these foot prints - side by side now instead of one in front of the other.

Still not sure what to make of this since Mikey had only two feet the last time Don had seen him, Raph and he were here, and Leo was still in the lair, Don had not mentioned them. But now that they had suddenly quit and it was only one set of foot prints once again, Don knew it was time to talk!

"Guys!" he yelled. "There were two sets of those foot prints...but now they're only one..."

"What does this mean, Donatello?" Splinter asked in concern as he panted through his continuous run.

"Either Mikey temporarily had four feet, or..."

Raph's eyes narrowed. "Or someone dressed up as one of us tricked him inta comin' out here!" he growled before quickening his already superior pace.

"MIKEY!" Raph yelled out before sliding to halt around a corner.

Confused, Splinter and Don stopped behind Raph and looked in bewilderment at the wall of rubble set before them. There were pipes clinging to the walls, and water was forcing its way through some cracks between the boulder-like rubble.

The old lair.

"Our old home..." Splinter stated.

Raph looked around and stopped in horror as he looked at a wall. Shaking, he stepped over to it and pressed his fingers against something that Splinter and Don could not see from their angle.

With a shiver in his spine, Raph looked back with the crimson liquid running down his fingers. "It's blood..."

Their eyes widened, Don and Splinter slowly, reluctantly turned the corner further and read what the wall said.

We WARNED you, Leonardo

Now because of you

They must DIE!

Congratulations.

A chill ran through the family when they suddenly heard something drop into the sewer water below them. Water sprayed their backs from the impact and they immediately turned around, ready to attack.

They gasped.

"MIKEY!" Raph voiced before rushing to his brother and dropping to his knees to turn his brother over and check to see if he was okay.

Michelangelo was cold to the touch, and his skin was such a light, sickly green that he looked like a corpse. On the back of his neck, a purplish bruise shown clearly - but he was alive.

Splinter and Don rushed to Mikey as well and Don dropped to their brother's other side as Splinter looked around for the culprit who had so viciously attacked his beloved son and now endangered his other children.

"Oh, my-- Mikey! Are you alright? Can you hear me? Mikey?" Don asked in a panic as he checked his brother with every medical standard that came to mind.

Slowly, Mikey's eyes opened and he started to shiver. His chocolate eyes locked with Raph's and he started to tear.

"Raph?" he asked shakily.

Raph tightened his grip on his brother's forearm and nodded. "Yeah, it's me, Bro!" he stated.

"It really was him!" Mikey said, shutting his eyes tightly. "Where's Leo? He's gonna--"

"Leo's in the lair, Mikey, its okay," Don explained softly.

Mikey's eyes widened. "He...he can't be!" he exclaimed. "He's gone! I know it!"

"What do you mean?" Raph demanded.

"H-...he told me so..." Mikey said before shutting his eyes tightly in pain. Tears slowly ran down his beak.

"Mikey, what are you talking about?" Don asked in confusion.

"Leo's in the lair!" Raph stated firmly.

Splinter looked to his sons when something...gooey dropped from the ceiling to his shoulder. He reluctantly turned his head and saw that a yellowish, sticky substance had dropped on him. It was alien to anything the elderly master had ever seen before.

Slowly, the rat's head jerked upwards and his eyes widened at what he saw.

"MY SONS!" he yelled.

Don and Raph looked over to their master just as something from the ceiling dropped from the ceiling - water splashing at his feet.

It stood up - the same height as the three turtles. Its skin was an almost fair green and it tightened its mask - a faded black one that, along with the color of its single katana's handle, were the only things that told them different from their first idea of who it was.

"Leo?" Don gasped as Raph quickly got to his feet and pulled out his sai.

"That ain't Leo!" Raph growled.

"Very good, Raphael - and here I thought all these years that you didn't think!" the impersonator stated.

Slowly, the Leo-look alike threw its head back and laughed. It laughed at them all with a roll of cold, maniacal, terrifying laughs - terrifying in the fact that when you got the real Leo to start really laughing, it was identical.

They were identical...

The look-alike glared at Splinter and stretched out his three-fingered hand. "Now, Dad - I'd enjoy having my other katana again... How can I be a wielder of the twin katana without my sword's twin?"

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April shook her head as she packed up two night's worth of clothes and quickly zipped the suitcase. She didn't understand how this could happen! Casey had been doing so good lately to stay out of trouble - he hadn't gone vigilante in a week - ever since he got that job. Now they were telling her that Casey's boss was dead and Casey was in the emergency room with two gun shot wounds and a concussion? What had happened?

As she turned to head out her door, she nearly dropped everything when she saw Leo standing in her doorway. He just stood there, not even bothering to apologize or ask if everything was alright. His face was nearly expressionless - cold. It was like he knew - he knew everything, and if April didn't know better, she would have thought that.

"Leo!" she said softly - her hand still over her heart as if to calm it. "You scared me..."

"I'm sorry," he finally said - but his continuous expressionless face almost made it better to have said in sarcastically. "But there are bigger things going on right now..." he explained.

April arched a brow. "Leo...are you in some kind of trouble.

Trouble? Of course you're in trouble - but tell her the truth and everything's gone. Your family. Her. Your chance of setting things right...

Leo nearly fell back, but he caught himself on the door frame. His head was spinning and he saw at least three...four blurred Aprils dancing around before he shook his head and refocused.

Rushing to him, April pushed up on his shell to help him return to a standing position. "My gosh, Leo - what's wrong? You should sit--"

"NO!" Leo yelled automatically before shaking his head again and regaining composure. "I's morry," he stated.

"What?" April asked as her worry lines began to show.

Pressing the palm of his hand into the left side of his head, Leo took a deep breath and waited until not even the echo of the voice remained in the dark corners of his mind. "I apologize, April - tonight is not a good night..."

"Do you need me to call your brothers for you?" she asked.

"I'm the one that's okay..." he stated. "Listen - what do you know about a..." He stopped and shut his eyes tightly.

Name...

Name...

What was her name?

He looked over to April. "Do you know about a 'Marilyn Jenkins'?" he asked.

April blinked. "Well...yes... She was my old roommate in college... But I think she got married--"

"They're divorced," Leo stated emotionless.

"How do--"

"I know..." he said quickly. "Do you have a last address?" he asked.

"Well, yeah - an apartment, but...Leo... What's going on?" she asked confused.

"I can't explain - Honestly, April, I would, but I can't," Leo stated in a tone that told April to 'leave it there'.

Nodding, April reached over to her nightstand and pulled off one of the sticky notes from the pad and grabbed a push pen. She pressed the end and began writing an address on the piece of paper. She then handed Leo the paper which he folded in half, and then again before putting it in his belt.

"Thank you, April - I promise that when this is all over I'll tell you every small detail!" Leo stated before heading out the door.

"Take care of yourself, Leo...I worry about you guys - you're my family..." she stated as she held her elbows.

Leo held to the door frame and shut his eyes tightly. He looked over his shoulder and gave a saddened expression. "April..."

"Yes, Leo?"

"Do me a favor..."

"Anything!" April swore immediately.

"Don't go out tonight..." he stated.

"Leo, but Case--"

"I know!" he said quickly. He then softened. "I know... But he'll be fine. Max wasn't after him, trust me."

"What are you talking about, Leo?" April stated - a rush of fear ran through her body.

"One more thing, April," Leo added, ignoring her question. "My brothers... When they come here... I'm sorry... Tell them I'm sorry - I don't know what is happening or why it's happening to me...but that's my request..."

As he walked through the door, April's eyes widened.

"Leo, wait--" she called out as he disappeared behind the wall. She ran out into the hall to find nothing but an opened window that was blowing wind and disturbing the curtains. She felt tears form at the corners of her eyes. "Leo..."

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Turtlefreak121: (waves) Howdy! TF121 with your chapter-ly report! Leo's gone crazy and I've trapped the others in the sewers with an unknown person - don't ya love how things work out?

Please Review!