The Black Veil

by Silvermoontwentyseven

Shredder has taken hold of Leo's mind. Warped and twisted into a mold of the one they hate, Leo becomes everything his family has always feared. With no choice left but to fight, the brothers are left to defend themselves against an impossible situation. But how can they possibly spill their own blood? (2012 DARK LEO)

6. Gone

Chapter Five:

Gone

Separation, breaking
Splitting me inside
Masquerading
I see the monster behind
Suffocate the life away
I choke on your lies
I'll descend, I'll burn the embers
Now I can rise
The war is just beginning

-Step Inside (The Violence), Red

{Oroku Saki}

The pain never ends. The rage never ends. And standing here, staring down at the mutant, at the abomination of my enemy, I feel it rushing through my blood, festering in every wound.

"You can sit right here, Saki."

I ignore Roth and glance at his brother, inputting commands into his machines.

"Is the paralytic necessary for the operation?"

Elias stops his work and turns to me. "For the first part, yes. The mutant is strong—even strapped down, his movements would disrupt the placement of the worm."

"Once the worm is in position, withhold the medication." My fingers clench at my side as I watch the mutant's heart rate rise on the screen. "I want to see him suffer."

Roth laughs. "Wouldn't expect anything less from the infamous Shredder."

I keep my eyes on the mutant as I sit in the chair.

Leonardo. Yoshi's prized pupil. The one who has struck me down, foiled years of planning, and poisoned the mind of my daughter. The memories burn, hot as the flames that forged me so long ago.

Elias begins removing some of the bandages from my scalp. He's speaking to me in long sentences I don't care to hear or acknowledge. I let him talk, I let him clean my wounds—I let him place a dozen wires around my skull. Fists clenched, mind seething. I think of her.

"Elias."

He pauses for a moment, one last wire. "What?"

"Bring Karai down here." Tighter, knuckles white. Burning. "I want her to see, too."

~T~

{Karai}

I don't know what to expect when my father summons me to some dark, secret room beneath the building. There are quite a few things running through my mind. But not what I see when the doors are opened.

Not Leo, strapped down to a table, covered with IVs and wires. Not him, not here, not alone and captive and still as the dead.

I can't keep the shock from my expression, even though I know Father is watching for it.

"What're you doing?" My gaze darts to each of them, incredulous. "When did you capture Leonardo?"

But Father dismisses my question, clenching his fists in his seat as Elias places one more wire to his scalp.

"He is ours now. Come, Karai." His eyes lock onto mine, sending fire through my veins. "Watch."

"I stopped the drip." Roth pulls an IV from Leo's arm. A droplet of blood comes to the surface, red against green. "You've got 15 minutes to place the worm."

Worm?

Father stares at me until I walk to his side, standing by the wall, Leo's stiff body in front of me. My stomach is turning into knots. I have a thousand questions, but the air holds no room for them. My voice remains trapped in my throat.

He has no facial expression, no movement whatsoever. Either he's out cold, or they've done something to make him still.

Or he's dead.

No, no—his heart rate is on the screen. Respirations, blood pressure, and is that…brain waves?

What are they doing?

Elias puts on a face mask and blue gloves. Roth hands him a glass container. My heart beats against my ribs as the anxiety floods my system. I try to stay stone-faced, but it becomes almost impossible when Elias pulls a wriggling, worm-like machine from the container.

"Connection six," he calls. Roth immediately goes to one of the computers, and after a few clicks, the big screen changes to a camera view.

"Inserting the worm."

The camera view sways, somehow attached to the tiny mutation. The side of Leo's head appears. My stomach twists—are they going to put that thing in his ear?

I clear my throat and try to sound like I don't care. "Where's that thing gonna go?"

Elias hums, focusing. "In a few minutes, it'll be lodged snugly in the mutant's brain."

My heart skips. I remember hearing these two talking, when they first showed up. They were arguing with that idiot Baxter about the possibility of…mind control. Is that what this is? Can they really control Leo's brain?

I don't want to watch, but I can't look away from the screen, from the twisting worm that begins to crawl inside of Leo's ear canal. Pink, curving tunnels appear on the screen.

"Alright, hand me the controls, Roth."

A pit forms in my gut, swallowing everything whole. My breath hitches as more of Leo's insides become visible through the camera. My eyes dart to the floor. I can't remember the last time I felt like I was going to throw up.

I don't know how long I'm staring at the tubes on the floor, terrified and sick to my stomach, but a strange noise brings my gaze back to the table. It starts low, almost guttural, before rising to a high-pitch whine that I can feel in my bones.

His eyes are open now, his pupils tiny pricks in a sea of ice. The awful sound is coming from him.

"Perfect timing," Elias mutters. "I just positioned the worm posterior to his frontal lobe. Roth, start the frequency." Elias straightens his back, hands on his hips as he admires his work. I realize I hate him.

"Saki, just lean back and close your eyes," he instructs. "When we match your frequencies with the worm, I want you to focus on everything you want to transfer over. Feel all of it—relive every second."

Shredder's knuckles are white as he clenches the arms of the chair. Two machines along the wall start to vibrate with a low hum. The screen flashes, now showing wave-like patterns that rise and fall. The beeping changes pitch, getting louder as the waves sharpen.

Leo's fingers start to twitch. Another strangled groan.

"Think, Saki," Roth calls over the rising noise. "Remember everything. Drown yourself in it."

Father's face contorts even further, his brow deeply knit, jaw tight, teeth grinding down—as if every fiber of his being is engaged in some kind of battle.

The panic stirs in my chest. I don't know what's happening—I don't know what's going to happen either. All I can do is stand here and watch the insanity unfold.

~T~

{Oroku Saki}

"Think, Saki."

The night was still, dark, quiet—and cold. There was no breeze, no wind to whisper in the trees, to mask my footsteps. But I went, I found a way inside, armed with steel and pain and rage. The chaos that ensued would change me, us—everything—and break my soul to pieces.

"Remember everything—"

The flames rose quickly, swallowing the world whole. Everything hurt, everything burned. The ashes stung my eyes and smothered my throat.

"Drown yourself in it."

I see their faces, I hear their voices. I feel their words stabbing me like so many daggers. Everyone left me; everyone betrayed me. Everything I ever knew was a lie—a black serpent that would wrap itself around my neck and strangle me until I found the strength to kill it.

But this world is filled with snakes. With liars and thieves. I killed thousands and marked my path in their blood, but it isn't enough, it can never be enough, not until he lies dead at my feet, broken, humiliated, stripped of all the things he stole from me—

Hamato Yoshi—

I will kill him—

My so-called brother—

I will tear his spirit from this world and leave him to the darkness that has snapped at my heels since I was a child. He will face the pain, the torment, the anguish and loneliness—he will drown in all he has cursed me with.

He will die. I will kill him.

The cavern in my chest spits and howls, breaking, cracking; spewing flames and hate and ache. I close my eyes and see it, the red, the yellow, the black. I see my world crumbling, over and over again. I hear her scream, I see her blood, I feel her weight, her absence, her void.

And it consumes me.

~T~

{Leo}

I see a world on fire. I see her eyes, big and brown, reflecting the hell surrounding her, the heat that burns her bloodstains from the floor and chars her bones to ash. I feel her death as if it were my own. It destroys me. My walls are cracked, my doors are broken, and the hatred floods in.

Red. Everything is red. Hot, flaming, burning, smoking—ashes and death and pain and torment. The ache rips through my soul. The despair snatches my face, crushes my bones—it pries open my jaw and pours in, climbing down my throat. Poisoning me, draining me, and then filling me to the brim with liquid fire. All I see is darkness as the serpents rise up beside me. They morph from thick, flaming coils to beasts, screaming, snapping, clawing everything to pieces.

All I know is all that's left. A shell, a hollow corpse I'm forced to reside in. I stitch my skin back to my bone and coax the blood to fill me. Memories surge; the foreign strangles the familiar. Nothing is mine. I am nothing. Nothing but the torrent of pain and rage that left me stripped and gutted.

Red. Ash. Fire. Black.

I'm gone.

I'm gone.

I'm gone.