The shadows in one of the doorways moved.
April stared in horror as a huge, armored form stepped out of the darkness. The metal plates of his helmet gleamed brilliantly in the too-bright light, the swirl of his cape made him seem bigger still. All that was visible of his face were his eyes, the rest covered with a faceplate, a metal mask that in no way muffled his thundering voice.
Most disconcerting of all were the blades emerging from the gauntlets on his wrists, cruel, cold, and sharp.
With a chill, April realized where the two ugly-looking gashes on Spike's face had come from.
Her slim fingers tightened in Spike's leather jacket as she pulled her back, shaking as the Shredder advanced, slowly, his boots clacking loudly on the floor. He nodded, looking almost pleased as he stepped forward, carelessly kicking through the disassembled remains of the Foot soldiers.
"Impressive. Very impressive. I was not certain you would get this far."
Around them, Foot soldiers flooded from the open doors, circling the turtles, Splinter, and the two humans. They stood, silent, weapons raised, as though waiting for a signal.
April's head spun. She turned on her heel, staring wildly around, trying to watch every robotic figure at once. Her gaze returned to the Shredder, who seemed to have grown still larger, filling the hallway before them. He stood at ease, arms at his sides. His gaze roved over the group, settling on the rat that stepped forward, unafraid, to meet him.
The Shredder nodded at him. "I must congratulate you, Hamato Yoshi, on a truly bold escape attempt. I admit, I thought you too weak to escape from my Technodrome's cells, much less defeat any of my Foot soldiers."
Splinter inclined his head, frowning. "Oruku Saki. You have always been arrogant, overly reliant on your technology, failing to see what it was that made the Foot Clan powerful."
The Shredder chuckled, a tinny sound trapped within his helmet. "Yes...you and your 'old ways'. You never changed, Rat. For all of your trust in ancient techniques, in the simplistic tools of the ancient ninja warriors, you'll notice you are still trapped, held captive by my Footbots, in my Technodrome." He leaned forward, staring Splinter down, a grimly satisfied edge to his voice. "You are still at my mercy, old man."
"And yet, four students have managed to destroy several of your Footbots with nothing but their skills and their weapons."
The Shredder laughed. "On the contrary. I've allowed them to come this far." He took another step nearer. "Every step of the way, I've been preparing, waiting to destroy you and your monster students as I should have done all those years ago."
"Wait." Leonardo stepped forward, a frown wrinkling his beak. "What do you mean?"
Shredder turned, eyeing the turtle. "Perhaps I overestimated your intelligence. I'd assumed you'd figured it out by now: I made you."
Leonardo went very still.
Raphael's fists clenched around his sais. "What're you talking about?" he barked. "You didn't make us. No-one did."
"It was a freak accident," Donatello added. He clutched his bo-staff, his voice shaky.
The Shredder chuckled again, spreading his hands. "I assure you, it was no accident. Indeed, it was I who made you who you are today. If not for me, Hamato Yoshi would never have left Japan. And if it were not for my mutagen, you would never have left your primitive state. It was I who caused you to mutate into your humanoid form."
"He's lying!" Raphael bared his teeth, raising his sais..
"Why chase Splinter out of Japan if you were just going to follow him and make him, and us, stronger?" Donatello asked, confusion spreading across his beak. "It doesn't make any sense!"
"Doesn't it?" The Shredder took another step forward. "I made you stronger, smarter, better. More than just a mindless animal. I made you, turtles. You owe everything to me. Because of my technology, you are useful." He paused. "And I never waste what I can use, as Ms. Sanchez can attest to."
Underneath April's fingers, Spike's muscles bunched.
April's grip loosened. She took a cautious step to the side, searching Spike's stoney face. "Spike?"
Spike's bruised jaw tensed, but she remained silent.
"I got news, buster," Raphael snarled. "We ain't being 'used' by anyone, especially you!"
"Don't deny your destiny, turtles. You were born to join the Foot Clan. Abandon your master, and join me."
"No way!" Michelangelo cried. "Splinter trained us! We owe everything to him!"
"We will never join you." There was a hard, cold bite to Leonardo's voice as he pointed his katana blade at the Shredder's armored chest. "We have listened to you long enough. Release us, now."
The Shredder folded his arms across his chest. "A bold command from one in a position of such little power. I could destroy you all right now, if I wished."
"Let me guess," Donatello said dryly. "You don't waste what you can use, right?" He lowered his bo-staff threateningly.
April's hands balled into fists. Almost unthinkingly, she stepped out from behind Spike, the words out of her mouth before she could stop them:
"Is that what you were going to do with Spike?" she burst out. "Use her?"
The Shredder turned his stare on her, seemingly larger than before. April halted, breath frozen in her lungs. It took all of her strength to stand there, to raise her chin and look the Shredder in the eye, trembling where she stood.
"Ah yes. The reporter. Even you, Ms. O'Neil, do not disappoint. I now see why it is that the Dragons were having such trouble getting rid of you."
Spike jerked forward, chin jutting out.
"Wasn't the Dragons," she snarled. "Y'tried t'kill her. Y'killed Burch, an' then y'tried to kill April. Y'just used the Dragons to do it."
The pieces fell into place. April's eyes widened.
"Of course," she breathed. "You've been giving the Purple Dragons weapons, and they do what you say, right?"
The Shredder waved his hand dismissively. "A business transaction that was unavoidable if I were to maintain my operations in this country. But, Ms. O'Neil, you were persistent. Too persistent, and worse, unwilling to die easily. Fortunately, your curiosity is easily able to be taken advantage of. Once the incompetent Dragons retrieved your friend instead of you, and she refused to be of assistance, it was easy to think of a better way to kill two birds with one stone, to lure you, and your reptilian allies, into my Technodrome."
"So we can all die together," Raphael muttered. "Great."
"Nobody's going to die," Leonardo said firmly.
"Your leader speaks the truth, if you take my offer." The Shredder took another step forward, crowding them back into the Foot soldiers behind. "Even you Ms. O'Neil, will escape with protection. You turtles, shunned by the surface world, would find a place of belonging, of power in my Foot Clan. I might even be persuaded to let Hamato Yoshi live. Refuse, and I will end your pathetic lives right now. Last chance, turtles. Join the honorable Foot Clan, and I will allow you to live."
There was a pause. April shrank back slightly into Spike's side as she watched the Shredder's eyes. There was the slightest spark of interest in them, of greed for power. She had the feeling that, if he were to let them go, freedom would have nothing to do with it. They'd be pawns until they no longer served his purposes.
April itched to shout it in his face, to shake that calm from him for just an instant, but the sharp blades of the surrounding Foot soldiers stopped the words from leaving her mouth. Instead, they circled around in her brain as she hoped and prayed that the turtles would know how to get them out of this with some semblance of tact-
"Does the phrase 'go suck a lemon' hold any meaning for you?" Raphael growled.
April winced.
So much for tact.
"Yeah!" Michelangelo cried, springing in front of Splinter. "No way, dude!"
Spike's heavy hand fell onto April's shoulder as she pulled her in closer. "Over my dead body," she snarled.
There was a brief flash of that old irritation that April had once felt at Spike's overprotective nature, before the look in Shredder's eyes chased it away. April sucked in a breath, wishing she still had her stolen sword, as useless as she had been with it.
The Shredder's eyes were devoid of anger, or frustration. It was as though their refusal was expected.
Not expected, she realized. It just didn't matter either way.
"Very well." The Shredder took a step back, nodding, his tone unchanged. "I have my own mutants. Foot bots, disengage."
Around them, the robotic soldiers lowered their weapons in sync, standing back against the wall, perfectly still.
Spike's shaking hand knotted into a fist in April's shirt.
"Bebop, Rocksteady!" The Shredder raised his voice, thundering through the hallway now.
"Who?" Michelangelo turned, glancing around the hallway.
"What?" Donatello cried.
April's heartbeat was so loud in her ears, she almost missed it.
The thumping of heavy footsteps, impossibly loud, echoing from all directions. She couldn't tell where they were coming from, only that they were getting closer, picking up speed.
"Prepare yourselves," Splinter advised, crouching. "We do not know what monsters the Shredder has created."
"Yes, Master." Leonardo settled, his features almost relaxed, somehow, as he watched the doors, waiting.
"Bring it on!" Raphael crowed, brandishing his sais.
Spike's mouth pressed into a hard line, her breathing faster now as she took a step back, turning her head, staring from doorway to doorway.
"We hafta get outta here," she murmured hoarsely.
As she spoke, at the end of the hall, behind the Shredder, two huge forms stalked through a doorway, turning to face them.
April's breath caught in her throat as she stared up at them.
They were giants, dwarfing even the Shredder in all but presence. The creature on the right was covered with grey, leathery skin, a monstrous horn protruding from his snout. On his left, a tusked, hairy creature snorted, puffs of air coming from his pig-like nose.
The warthog and the rhinoceros DNA. April's jaw dropped as her gaze roved over the mutants, taking in their apparel. Camo pants, boots, the warthog's purple mohawk…
Her eyes widened as she reached out, grasping Spike's arm.
The Purple Dragons from the alley. These were the men that had chased them into the sewer, who'd broken into the zoo, mangled into monsters.
The Shredder waved a careless hand as the mutants came up on either side of them. "I have no further use for them," he said, almost casually. "Destroy them."
The rhinoceros grinned, an ugly, twisted expression on his animalistic face. "With pleasure, Master Shredder."
Spike moved before she thought, yanking April to the side before crouching, reaching for her discarded weapon. Beside her, two of the turtles charged forward, shouting, weapons raised.
"Raphael! Michelangelo! No!" One of the other reptiles cried. "We need a plan!"
The voice was fuzzy in her head, pushing through the ringing and aching to rattle her brain. Her hair was in her eyes, clumped by dried blood. Her hands wrapped around the cold metal of the kanabō, a shock to her burning-hot skin. Her breath came shallow and fast through her mouth, her broken nose clogged to the point where she couldn't breathe through it.
The room was spinning around her, the roaring rumble of the mutants' footsteps making the metal floor beneath her tremble. The memory of the fist coming down, the charges, Bebop's heavy weight on her chest, came back in an overpowering rush.
She couldn't think.
There was an almighty roar, and Michelangelo landed, skidding to a halt on his shell, two feet from where Spike was crouched.
"These guys are tough, dudes!" he exclaimed, flipping to his feet.
Bebop's bellow filled the hallway, as he took a step forward, swiping a fist at Raphael. "Why don't y' try puttin' those little forks away, turtle?"
Raphael growled, leaping up onto Bebop's arm and digging a sai into his shoulder, throwing his weight backwards to throw the heavy mutant off balance. Donatello dove in beside him, sweeping his bo staff, blocked by Rocksteady's massive arm catching him across the plastron, throwing him back.
Donatello gasped for air, falling back into a roll. "They're too big, Leonardo!"
"Just remember, the bigger they are, the harder they fall! Look for weaknesses!" Leonardo cried.
"Weaknesses?" The Shredder laughed. "You young fool, they have no weaknesses. The perfect fighting machines, loyal only to me, obedient to my every command."
As he spoke, Bebop stopped short, turning to glance at the Shredder over his thick, hairy shoulder. "Now hold on a minute," he growled. "We're Dragons. Dragons don't take orders from nobody."
"You do from me." The Shredder's voice had a sharp, warning edge to it. "Or did you forget our agreement?"
"We didn't forget nothin'." Bebop absently swatted Leonardo's sword away from his snout, sending the blue-clad leader crashing against a wall. He pointed an accusing paw at the Shredder. "But every time y'give us orders, they go against what the Dragons want."
Rocksteady slowly paused, his leathery brow wrinkling. "Hey, yeah." His eyes narrowed. "He wouldn't let Hun bump off O'Neil."
"Or Sanchez. Jus' wants us to blow these turtles away."
April's head hurt, but not enough to stop her brain from working. The argument had slowed the fight to a grinding halt, and even the turtles' gung-ho enthusiasm was diminishing. They were tired, exhausted after fighting through wave after wave of robot ninja. The weight of the revelation the Shredder had been orchestrating everything for over fifteen years was a heavy one, numbing their actions with shock.
Her gaze slid to Splinter. The old rat was still standing, but weak. He was in no condition for a marathon fight. The escape attempt had already cost him energy and strength.
And then there was Spike. Unsteady on her feet, battered and broken, shaking like a leaf and still pretending that she wasn't terrified.
She wouldn't make it through another round. She was dead on her feet already.
These new mutants, the Purple Dragons, were fresh. They were surrounded by inert Foot soldiers, waiting for the order to attack. The Shredder himself was imposing enough to warrant quite a fight.
April slowly pushed away from the wall she'd been shrinking against as the thought rose to the front of her mind, big and loud and obvious.
They couldn't win this fight. But there were alternatives to fighting.
She cleared her throat. "That's because the Shredder doesn't want a partnership!"
The mutants paused again, turning their big heads to zero in on April. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Spike, taking a step towards her, already angling her body between her and the mutants.
April turned her head, shaking it slightly, trying to meet Spike's eye, to reassure her that everything was okay, that for once, April had this under control.
"What d'you know about it?" Bebop rumbled. His eyes were unreadable behind the pair of sunglasses over them, but his tone was hesitant. April grimaced, raising her chin and leaping on opportunity.
"I know that I've been investigating." April prayed that her voice sounded steadier than it felt. "And I know that the Shredder's goal isn't a partnership. He doesn't want to make you strong, he wants to make you weak! Able to be used as tools. Do you think with all this technology, that he'd just leave the Dragons alone once he got what he wanted?"
Rocksteady scratched his head. "Well…"
Leonardo was standing slowly, his sharp eyes fixed on April, nodding as understanding settled over him.
"She's right," he called. He sheathed his katanas, raising his hands. "With all this power, he mutated you to be part of his forces. He'll do the same to the rest of the Dragons. He's using you, pretending that this is a partnership so that he has a way in to the rest of the city."
"He'll take over your territory!" April took a step forward, speaking louder now, forcing the tremble out of her tone. "He'll mutate your entire force, and then he'll start a gang war with no winners but him! He'll take the entire city, take the profits from your rackets!"
Shredder barked a laugh. "Pitiful attempts to sway my servants. You think they'll listen to you? I gave them everything. I gave them weapons, soldiers. I gave them power."
"Y'turned us into freaks!" Bebop roared, turning around. "Lookit us! We used t'be some of Hun's best guys!"
"Yes, exactly! You were too powerful!" A grin spread across Donatello's beak as he spread his arms, gesturing with his staff. "He's just using you to trap us! Don't you have better things to do than beat on a bunch of kids and an old man?"
April caught Spike's eye, fighting back a sigh of relief as Spike paused, understanding gradually settling on her bruised features. April reached out, touching Spike's shoulder, gently pulling her a step back. At the same time, she craned her neck, looking over the group to lock gazes with Leonardo.
Run, she mouthed.
He nodded, tapping Michelangelo on the shell and gesturing subtly, signaling something that April didn't understand.
Michelangelo nodded, taking a slow step backwards, surreptitiously making the same sign with a tri-fingered hand to his brothers and master.
"That's right," Leonardo added, stepping forward as his brother edged back. "I thought the Purple Dragons were something to be afraid of. Turns out they're just the Shredder's mutant puppet errand boys!"
There was no mocking tint in his tone, no spiteful bite. Leonardo knew nothing about them. There was no history between them except for one defeat of their boss on a rooftop. And yet, somehow, those words, in that cold, noble, intelligent tone, were the straw that broke the camel's back.
As massive as the mutants were, they seemed to swell even larger. Bebop huffed, chest puffing larger, rounding on the Shredder, furry fists raised. Rocksteady followed, swinging his huge arms as he clumsily spun, roaring, head down, horn up.
"We don't take orders from nobody but the Dragons!" Bebop bellowed. His fists arced down-
April felt a large hand clasp around her arm, automatically turning to follow the motion. The hand jerked her back, down the hallway. Her legs struggled to move into motion for a moment as Leonardo dashed past her, incredibly fast.
She shook her head, allowing Spike's iron grip to yank her forward, pushing herself to keep up. She burst into a dead run, sprinting past disassembled Foot soldiers and Hun's bloodied form, whether dead or alive, she wasn't sure.
"We have to get to the surface!" Leonardo cried, his voice echoing back, bouncing off the walls. "Donatello?"
"All we need is an exit! Doors should still be open, unless they've been rewired in the past ten minutes, which-" Donatello jerked his thumb at the hallway full of open doorways. "They haven't! I fried the circuits too much for an easy repair job, don't worry."
"We'll congratulate you later," Raphael shouted. "Right now, we need to move!"
"Raphael is right," Splinter panted. "The Shredder's creatures are slow of mind, but we should not underestimate them or the Shredder's control."
"Are you saying we didn't win?" Michelangelo asked over his shoulder.
"I'm saying do not celebrate until we are well away from this place."
April couldn't have agreed more.
She heaved for breath as she caught up to Leonardo at the back of the pack. She grimaced, struggling to hear any sounds of pursuit over her shoes tapping on the metallic floor, and Spike's boot-steps thundered alongside beside her. She chanced a glance back over her shoulder, straining to see the Shredder and his mutants.
"Here!" Donatello pointed his staff to the left, through a doorway to another identical hallway. "Feel the air flow? Exit's that way!"
April jerked her head back around, eyes widening as Spike's grip on her arm changed, swinging her around the turn a second before April collided with the wall.
"Hurry," Spike rasped in her ear. "They're comin'."
April's stomach clenched as she reached out, grabbing at Spike's hand on her arm. "Already?!"
Leonardo turned his head as he skidded around the corner through the doorway into the new corridor behind April. His beak was set in a hard, grim line, an almost defeated look in his eyes. "We can't fight them all," he murmured.
Even further behind, the howling of the two mutants was growing closer, as was another sound: a slower, background sound, of blades against metal. As though someone was scraping a knife across a silver plate.
The image of the Shredder's bladed gauntlets sprang to April's mind, coated in dried blood, tumbling in her head and mixing with an image from a horror movie Spike had taken her to see three years ago: blades scraping the wall as Freddy Krueger advanced on a victim.
She felt like screaming. She blocked the memory out, attempting to ignore the sound, forcing her energy and oxygen into her legs, pushing faster. Spike was at her back, breathing hard, a labored, wet sound. April squashed down a sudden burst of worry as fear and concern battled for dominance in her chest.
"Donatello, can you close a door behind us?" Leonardo called.
Donatello shook his head without looking back. "Too much time! They'd be on top of us by then."
"How close is the exit?" Michelangelo called hopefully.
"Close…closer…." Donatello spun abruptly, pointing his staff at the floor. "There! Go! I'll try to lock the door behind you."
April couldn't even see the opening at first, just the back of Michelangelo's shell as he dove downward, through a gap in silver.
At first, that's all it seemed to be. A gap in the silver, a break in the metal monotony of the Shredder's maze.
As Raphael lifted Splinter into his arms and stepped to the edge of the hole, though, April realized the truth:
It wasn't a doorway. It was a small gap, the connection point that linked the Technodrome to the treads underneath it. They were jumping underneath the vehicle onto the treads.
The support for the tread poked up through the hole, thick and round, pushing up through the ceiling into another level. April craned her neck to gape at it, staggering back as Raphael leapt through the slim gap, his shell scraping against the edges of the opening as he did so.
"We must be on the bottom level of the Technodrome," Donatello mused from his spot at the control panel. "Makes sense. The detention level would be considered the most disposable…" his voice trailed off as he glanced sideways at Spike. "No offense."
"Ms. Sanchez, you're next." Leonardo drew his katanas, turning to face the way they'd come.
Spike shook her head. "April first," she grunted.
April yanked her arm out of Spike's vice-like grip, shaking off the fear for an instant as she turned to face her, planting her small, manicured finger in the center of Spike's leather-clad chest.
"You listen to me. I've spent days worried sick about you! I've walked into ninja pizza parlors and mutant-infested sewers, and I've faced down Purple Dragons and ninja overlords to get you back! I am not letting you die here because you think you have to protect me! Now go!" She shoved at Spike's shoulders, pushing her towards the gap in the floor. "I'll be right behind you!"
Spike's eyes flashed with surprise, bloodied eyebrows knit together in a scowl, mouth opening as though to argue. If not for her mangled face, she would have looked exactly like she had the night April first took this story, the picture of overprotective fury.
April lowered her hand, balling it into a fist as she bit her lower lip, blinking back a fresh wave of tears. "Spike, please," she murmured. "Go. I can take care of myself."
"Hey, c'mon up there! Hurry it up, we don't have all night!" Raphael's voice carried up through the gap in the floor, irritated with a tinge of something that April suspected was worry.
"Go!"
Spike turned, reluctantly, stepping shakily towards the gap in the floor. April pushed gently at her shoulder, anxiously glancing back at the door. "Go!"
Spike glanced over her shoulder one last time, huffing once before plunging, feet first, into the hole in the Technodrome floor.
Thank you guys so much for reading! Please let me know what you think in a review, it really helps me write, and I hope to see you all in the next chapter! Stay healthy!