A Million Miles Apart

A/N: Well… things have certainly changed a lot since last time, hasn't it?

In the bright side, I've found a very good keyboard to write with so I hope I can keep writing until I can get a new computer. But I can only hope that you are all okay and doing good, either in quarantine or wherever.

Anyway, I hope you'll like this chapter and please review, favorite and follow!

Chapter 72, Making Plans and Solving Disputes

Prime Leader Zanramon was sitting on his throne, looking very impatient, drumming his fingers on the armrest and looking me over as I entered the throne room, flanked by two other soldiers. I tried to appear more confident than I felt.

Mozar stood by his side, as stoic and immovable as a mountain; his eyes were zeroed in on me, hands clasped behind his back and his beak clenched tightly.

I stopped at a safe distance away from the Prime Leader's throne, gestured for the two soldiers behind me to place the fragment at his feet, which they did without a word, bowing to their leader before moving back to flank me.

I smiled at Zanramon, raised my clenched fist over my heart and bowed before gesturing to the fragment in front of him.

"Prime Leader Zanramon. I have retrieved the fragment from those cursed brats and traitors, just as I promised you." I bowed again. "I hope that this victory will honor your great name and our proud race."

Zanramon stood up from his seat with a pleased grin on his face, making his way down from his throne and examining the fragment, rubbing a hand over the cool, dark metal.

"Ah, excellent. At last there are some positive results from you." He looked up at me with a wicked, condescending smirk on his face. "Perhaps you aren't completely useless to me after all, Lieutenant. This is quite a job well done."

I sucked in a deep breath through my snout and clenched my fists tightly, holding myself back from punching this oversized lard ball in his smug face. Ooh, the temptation to just follow through with the desire, just once, and not give a damn about the consequences... It'd be nothing less than he deserved, after all he had put our people through.

But I couldn't do that. Not if I didn't want to end up like Traximus: a traitor and disgrace to the Triceraton Empire, thrown into a jail cell to rot. Or worse, get thrown into The Arena. That would never be worth it.

So I just kept a neutral pride on my face as I dug my sharp nails into the palms of my hands, almost enough for them to break on the rock hard skin.

"Thank you, Prime Leader Zanramon. The gratitude of you and our people is all that matters."

Zanramon turned to me, his smirk turning serious for a moment, eyeing me up and down. "And what of the brats?"

I withheld a chuckle at the thought of that accursed boy, covered from head to toe in the blood of a beast and being ridiculed by everyone around him before that Federation brat finished him off. Oh, if only I had been able to see it for myself- it would have been perfect!

"Worry not, Prime Leader, he will surely not bother us anymore. He has been dealt with and will no longer be a problem for our honorable task. He and his little friends have been terminated, just as he deserves."

Zanramon's smirk returned to his face, his beady eyes practically beaming with shameless delight and schadenfreude.

"Excellent. You've done well, Lieutenant. Now leave us and get back to work; I want the location of the second fragment in my hands as soon as possible. We have no time to waste, soldier."

I hit my fist against my chest again, bowed my head and said, "Of course, Prime Leader," before turning and leaving the room, a pleased smile forming on my face as the doors closed behind me.

'Checkmate, kid.'

The next day things were still a little bit awkward and quiet between me and the girls. While Jhanna wasn't as angry as she had been when I had told her about my actions, she wouldn't speak to me and tended to sort of glare at me from a distance. Starlee kept her distance and despite giving her all in our training session and being very enthusiastic in learning as much as she could, she avoided eye contact and didn't speak much, either. Mona was the one who acted the most normal with me but she also seemed a bit upset, but more from me making a decision without the rest of the team there to tell them how they thought about it. Still, she at least seemed to acknowledge my existence by talking to me more than the bare minimum.

Traximus and the Professor tried to act as if nothing had happened the other day, with Traximus offering to help keep an eye on Moriah so Jhanna wouldn't do anything stupid while on duty and the Professor making a point to talk about plans and strategies to best take the first piece of the Black Hole Generator back from the Triceratons. But I had a hard time focusing on it all. My mind kept wandering off to other things and I just sort of went through the motions, hoping that no one would notice, doing my best to act as leader and captain and always making sure to keep up the façade of knowing what I was doing.

I spent way too much time battling with my fears and guilt from last night, worried if the girls wouldn't want to be around me or follow me into battle anymore. Though I knew- if only slightly- that the fears were unfounded, since they had followed me into worse situations before this, it still unnerved me how they wouldn't talk to me and stayed away over what felt like a very petty disagreement.

Curse me and my stupid insecurities!

There was also a part of me that was still angry and bitter about being left out of their little meeting yesterday and the very obvious fact that they were hiding something from me. So I also felt a bit resentful of them and at times it was nice that they didn't come near me- I didn't want to be near them, either.

So here I was, picking at my lunch and trying to sort my thoughts as the girls were sitting at another table, all of us pretending the others weren't there. I tried to pretend that it didn't hurt that they were ignoring me and refusing to sit with me; I was above letting these petty feelings of injustice and envy rule me like that anymore, and I needed to be mature and handle these things like an adult and not an immature child or moody teenager.

So instead I kept my back straight in an attempt to look as normal and aloof as I could in the current situation.

'Never let them see how you truly feel.'

'Let them think they know, keep them guessing. But don't ever let them see how they're hurting you.'

'Never let them see you break.'

I kept hammering these thoughts into my brain over and over as I ate; words I had told myself over and over ever since I was ten years old, teaching myself to appear nonchalant and aloof when my heart was aching and my eyes were burning with unshed tears.

'Don't let them see your hurt.'

'Don't let them see your tears.'

'They can't win if they don't see your pain or blood.'

I had spent most of my time tinkering in the holo-dojo the last few days, as I had always done for as long as I could remember. Whenever I wasn't training or needed to focus on the next step in our plans, I was working on new inventions. I had already completed a prototype of a pair of rollerblade boots for Starlee, with retractable wheels so that she could use them as normal shoes and for skating if she needed to, although she would need at least a few more weeks of training before I could train her to use them in battle. I had also made a whole bunch of smoke bombs, much more advanced than the ones made out of eggs back on Earth, as well as a few bombs with knock-out gas, super glue and other good stuff that might come in handy in the future.

Though I had spent most of my time on a new project that I had wanted to do for a rather long time now.

In all honesty it had been on my mind for a while, probably at least a month or so, and I had even started on it a few weeks ago. But now I had fire burning in my gut and a new drive to finish it, so after finishing my lunch, I grabbed my tools and the blueprints and went back into the holo-dojo. I put on the camera I had in there to capture all my work and notes for future reference, and went to work.

It had been a bit of an epiphany I'd had after Zerij; the armor I had put on my spacesuit's arms and legs had been good, but I suddenly got the idea to make a full suit of armor, and it had only grown into an amazing idea and invention from there. So I sat down one day and drew the blueprints on the ship's 3D printers (so. freaking. awesome!) and came up with the ideas for how to make it work, along with different weapons and features. So far I had created blasters from the gauntlets, jet rockets on my back and boots to make me fly, and hidden rockets and bombs I could fire, but I was spurting with many more ideas.

One thing that was really great now that I had thrown away my connections to my old life and the ninja clan I had been forced into was that I suddenly had a new freedom I had never felt before. There was no Leo whining about how my inventions 'took away the point of being a ninja' or that 'a true ninja doesn't need technology' or other such nonsense. I had no limitations or rules telling me I couldn't do this or couldn't do that anymore, and that was more than I could have ever hoped to have back home. All I had ever gotten there was limitations and a million rules, if not from my family then from being forced to work with garbage and already broken stuff.

"No. No, no don't think about that. It's a distraction, keep your focus here," I muttered to myself as I made the finishing touches on the boots and took a step back to inspect my work. They looked pretty good, if a little dull- simple silver metal and not much else. They could certainly do with a little color.

"Oh well, a dye-job can be done when I've managed to get it all working," I muttered, and moved to put them on. A perfect fit, I found, as the machinery all slipped into place around my feet and legs, which was a bit surprising. I had expected myself to make them too tight or too loose, since I had never made shoes or anything like this before. But hey, I wasn't going to complain.

I took a few steps further into the room and looked towards the camera. "Alright, let's do this right. This is test #1 of my boot-jets and we're gonna start off nice and easy, only 10% power, so we don't crash and burn right away."

"We'll save that for future attempts," I mumbled to myself before taking a breath and looked down at the wires I had drawn from the boots and to the amulet around my neck, then the controls I had in my hands.

"I have connected the boots to the power cell from a jetpack from one of the ship's many spacesuits as a temporary power source. Still looking into better alternatives. Something that can power something bigger and more powerful in the future. But anyway, enough talk- let's do this."

I braced myself, placed my thumbs over the buttons on the controllers and took a deep, somewhat shaky, breath.

"Okay, on three. One, two, three."

The following events happened so fast that I couldn't really process what happened until after it happened and I found myself lying on the floor.

Not one second after I pushed the buttons, I shot up into the air, slammed right into the ceiling and fell down onto the floor with a loud thud.

I lied there for a couple of minutes as my brain tried to register what had just happened, a pounding pain in my forehead and back of my skull from where it had slammed against the ceiling and the floor. Thankfully my shell had taken most of the impact when I hit the floor, so it didn't quite hurt as much as it probably would've otherwise.

"Score one for being a turtle," I muttered as I crawled back up my feet. After a quick run to the food-replicator to get a bag of ice, I sat down in front of the camera again.

"So… I crashed. Right into the ceiling." I paused, because why not add comedic effect? "Yeah, that happened." I sighed and adjusted the bag of ice on my head.

"I guess I underestimated the power in these boosters, so even 10% is quite powerful. Either that or I really need to find a better power source than this jetpack's. Probably both. So, yeah, I crashed. But I didn't burn, that's the important thing. And I'll get right on figuring out how to fix that." I grimaced. "Just as soon as my head stops pounding."

I paused the footage and leaned back in my seat, sighing heavily, dropping the hand holding the ice pack into my lap. My head was still aching, but I needed a moment to sit back and reflect, and I came to the conclusion that I might be going about this the wrong way: lots of power was good, very good, even if it came from a questionable power source. And if it translated into great power for the suit and its weapons, I might just have to work around the whole 'crashing into the ceiling' thing.

I sighed again, turned the camera back on and stood up. "Maybe I need to find some other way to make sure I don't crash again." I looked over at the screens and the pad I had been working on, pulling up the 3D blueprint of the armor. Nothing too fancy, it just looked like a big metal turtle, but I had never been one to care too much about aesthetics. When all your resources consisted of garbage and old technology most humans thought of as obsolete, you couldn't really afford to be too picky about how the stuff looked- before or after its completion.

Humming, I looked over the suit and tilted my head to the side, the cogs in my brain turning as I tried to think of some way to adapt for the high power outage. My eyes zeroed in on the gauntlets and an idea sparked.

'If I have jets on my boots to fly up, then if I have something similar on the gauntlets that evens it out a little…' I zoomed in on the gauntlets, enhanced their size and slid my arm and hand into the 3D model.

"Alright, so if I place a thruster in the center of my palm here…" I added the thruster into the design and moved my arm around to get a good view of the gauntlet from all sides. "Okay, that should be able to counter the power from the boot thrusters and even out the flight, but I'll have to run some tests on it before I can be sure of it. And make a prototype of it. But it should work."

And so I started to work on the first gauntlet, which when finished mostly consisted of a metal shell and several wires that connected it with my temporary power source as I strapped it around my forearm, tongue sticking out of the corner of my mouth in concentration.

Then, as I adjusted the power capacity to make sure I didn't overdo it again, I heard the door open and someone walk in. I looked up briefly, watching Mona walk in before turning back to my work.

"Donnie, you need to come out. The Professor and Traximus want to talk to us about our next move." Her tone was curt and she seemed a bit annoyed to be talking to me, but I was too absorbed in my work to pay it much attention.

"Mmhm, sure, be right there."

Mona sighed and in my peripheral vision I saw her put her hand on her hip, lean on one leg and tilt her head tiredly at me, like a parent observing an annoying child.

"I thought you were working on gadgets to help our mission- not weapons." Her voice was annoyed, hesitant.

"It is. This is a flight stabilizer, totally harmless." As I said this, I connected the last latch and raised my arm in the first test of my invention. I hadn't set up any targets or anything, but the thruster was nowhere near dialed up enough to cause too much damage.

Or so I thought.

I was wrong. Again.

Just as I fired an- intentionally- weak blast into the open air, I was blown backwards by the thrust, falling to the floor with a loud crash. A lot of equipment fell off the table from the sound wave from the blast. Mona shrieked, and when I recovered from the shock enough to look up, I saw that she had covered her head and ears with her arms.

"I… I didn't expect that."

She stared at me, part incredulous and part terrified, before hurrying over and pulling me to my feet. I could see her eyeing my gauntlets very cautiously and she noticeably kept her hands far away from them.

"That's it. Come on, you're taking a break. Right now." She barely gave me a second to respond before she- quite violently- removed the gauntlets from my arms and dragged me out of the holo-dojo, leaving me scrambling and almost tripping over my feet.

"Alright, I'm coming, I'm coming."

She dragged me out into the control room and sat me down on the steps before she started to look over my head and neck, making sure nothing was broken or too bruised. My head was pounding a little and my neck and shoulders were aching from the fall from earlier, but I didn't say anything and just let her examine me without complaining.

Besides, I didn't really think I had much to complain about, considering she still seemed a little mad at me about yesterday.

I sighed and looked aside, only to see the others there too, waiting for me.

Jhanna studied me with a very dry smile. "Well, well, look who's finally decided to grace us with his presence." Her tone was cheerful enough, but there was a very obvious venom in her voice that made it clear that she wasn't happy with me. I cringed a little.

Starlee rolled her eyes and gently shoved her, even though she didn't look too thrilled with me either.

"Jhanna, come on. Let's not start another fight." Jhanna rolled her eyes but didn't say much else. Mona came up to me with my ice pack and pressed it to my head, nudging my arm and making me hold onto it with my other hand.

There was the sound of echoing footsteps as Traximus and The Professor walked up to the main computers, looking very serious.

The Professor cleared his throat. "So, I believe we all understand why we're gathered here. Zanramon and his troops have the first fragment of the Black Hole Generator and we need to get it back. And while we are already following them, we need to come up with a plan for how to do so without being noticed. Starlee, have you found the blueprints?"

She nodded with a small smile and joined them at the computers, pressing a button; a huge holographic image of the Triceraton ship appeared before us.

"I managed to find and download the blueprints of the Triceraton mothership, as that's likely where they keep the fragment. After looking over every single crook and nanny, my best guess is they would keep it here."

She moved her hands over the hologram, zooming in on one room and pressing on it, making a red blinking dot appear. "This is the Central Weapons Chamber, where they keep all of their most dangerous and valuable weapons and artifacts. If they'd keep it anywhere, it'd be there."

I looked over the maps and blueprints, soaking up her every word and adding it to memory, before getting up and moving closer, eyeing all the corridors and air vents and other ways up to said room.

"What do we know about their security?"

Traximus cleared his throat and pointed at the doors to the room. "Zanramon will most likely keep at least two guards outside this room and make sure it's constantly guarded. He has always been paranoid so he will most definitely do everything he can to keep the fragments hidden."

I side-eyed him a bit warily. It felt a little weird hearing him talk about Zanramon like this after he'd revealed that Zanramon was his son. He spoke about him like he was just another enemy.

'Then again, if I had been thrown in jail by someone I had considered family and been left to rot for two decades, I'd probably be a bit bitter too.'

Mona chimed in, resting her chin on her fist. "What about surveillance? Cameras, radar, traps, anything like that?"

Traximus pursed his lips and hummed. "Hm, I don't believe that Zanramon will set too many traps; as paranoid as he is, he's not smart or insightful enough to think that far ahead. His guards are usually enough, since few can win a fight against a Triceraton. But he will of course have strong surveillance over these rooms and make sure he has the Black Hole Generator under tight supervision. Still, it should not be too tricky to hack and deactivate it for at least a few minutes and give us time to get in and get out without anyone noticing us."

Jhanna sneered. "And you don't think that they'd notice the bright white space ship tailing them as we fly up to them? Even with the cloak on, they're bound to notice us sooner or later."

I turned to her with a small smirk. "We'll use the stealth ship. As we get close enough, we'll cloak the main ship, pile into the stealth ship, and get close to the best opening-" I pointed to an entrance that was very close to the weapons room. "We'll go through there; the emergency airlock. It's the easiest way in. Once we're in, we sneak all the way to the chamber, snatch the Black Hole Generator and sneak out before anyone notices us."

I turned to look at The Professor, smiling weakly. "We would need someone to hack the surveillance and keep an eye on everything while we sneak in. Could you, Starlee and Mona stay here while Jhanna, Traximus and I go in?"

The Professor nodded with a small smile of his own. "Of course, Donatello! You can count on me!"

Starlee however, was having none of it. She shot me a glare.

"But I wanna go too! I can help, you know I can! I did just fine on Zerij!"

I took a calming breath and had to close my eyes so I wouldn't roll them, putting on my best leader voice. "We can't take any risks, Starlee. Yes, you did well on Zerij- but you're still inexperienced. We can't risk losing the fragment or getting captured; it's not worth it."

She threw her arm out at Traximus. "But you're bringing him along? If we're supposed to be stealthy, why bring the biggest and heaviest fighter on the team?"

I flinched a little at her disrespectful tone, but Traximus just looked at her with a raised eyebrow and his face showed no trace of definable emotion.

With a sigh, I crossed my arms over my chest. "Yeah, and that might be a risk. But we are going to need his strength, both in case of trouble and to carry the device. If we tried to carry that thing on our own, we'd just be slowed down and risk getting caught. At least this way we'll be quicker." I scrubbed a hand over my face, dropping the ice pack from my head, placing it on the floor at my feet. "Besides, we can't go in everyone at once anyway. In case something does happen and we need backup, we can't all go in at the same time." I turned to Mona. "Do you have problems with staying behind?"

She shook her head. "To be honest I'm kind of relieved. I spent way too long in that damn ship and I'm in no hurry to go back. If you need me for backup then I'll be there, but I'm glad to hang back until then."

'That's what I'm talking about!'

I placed a hand on her shoulder. "Yeah, I thought so. Still, just wanna make sure that you're okay with it." Then I turned to Starlee. "And I understand that you wanna help and be in a fight, especially since you've started to learn how to hold your own. But you are still very green and I don't want you to get hurt in a fight you might not be able to handle. You're training under me, so that means it's my responsibility to make sure out of danger and prepared for whatever might come. And I say that you're not ready for this, so for now, you're backup. End of discussion."

She still didn't look happy about it, but didn't argue and just folded her arms over her chest and glowered at the ground. Jhanna placed an arm around her and whispered something in her ear; probably something encouraging or comforting because a smile was suddenly tugging at her lips.

Traximus looked to me and the Professor. "How long will it take for us to catch up to the mothership?"

I looked over the information on the dashboard. "Just a couple of days- three at most. And we'll spend those days preparing and training to make sure we're ready." I turned to Jhanna and said carefully, "Are you willing to do a few training sessions with me and Traximus everyday until we're close enough?"

She smirked and put her hands on her hips. "Sure, if you think you can keep up with me, Shellhead. Remember, we've had it confirmed who's the stronger of us."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, stronger maybe, but I've been trained in stealth since I learned to walk. I think I've got you beat on that."

Jhanna just scoffed. "Yeah, whatever."

I smiled and the tension suddenly felt lighter, almost gone, and I very much enjoyed our bantering- even if it was quite possible she was still angry.

I breathed a sigh of relief at having a plan somewhat put together and looked out over my teammates, pulling my shoulders back.

"Okay, will that be all or does anyone have any more questions?" When no one said anything, I smiled and nodded conclusively. "Alright then, I guess we're done for now." And with that everyone started to get up from their seats or walk out of the room, off to do whatever they did in their free time.

But as I made my way back towards holo-dojo, I heard someone clear their throat behind me, and when I turned around I saw the girls. Jhanna was just a few feet away, her arms folded, and Mona and Starlee were flanking her, though they didn't look angry as much as a bit sore about everything.

"We've been talking things over," they shared a glance before looking back at me, "and we've come to the conclusion that you were a jerk yesterday."

I was a bit taken aback by Jhanna's bluntness, but I did recognize that she was right so I just nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, suppose I was."

Starlee low-key glared at me, one eyebrow slightly raised and lips pursed. "You shouldn't have made a decision like that without our consent."

I nodded again and refrained from saying something that might make things worse. "No. I shouldn't have done that."

Mona took a breath through her nose and looked me in the eye. "But we were also kinda jerkish, considering we left you out of a debriefing and made such a big deal out of nothing. So I guess we can't really throw stones at you, even if the results might be different."

I said nothing, unsure of exactly what was going on or what to say.

Jhanna groaned and rubbed her forehead with a tired and frustrated expression on her face. "And as much as I absolutely hate to admit it," she said, taking a deep breath, "you are right about it being a good idea to keep Moriah under tight supervision and make sure she can't cause any more trouble than she already has."

She didn't exactly sound like she meant it, at least not 100%, but there was a begrudging agreement in her voice so these were obviously not just words that Mona or Starlee had forced her to say for whatever reason.

Though she was very clearly not happy about having to admit it- that much was obvious.

Mona could also tell this, so she took over. "So yeah, we have talked about it and agreed that, while it wasn't cool of you to not let us have a say in this, we understand your reasoning and it's probably for the better that we're keeping her close rather than just dropping her off somewhere and risking her following us and halting our progress again."

I smiled and nodded, feeling warm inside- they understood where I was coming from.

"Thank you, girls. That means a lot."

Then Jhanna looked up at me fiercely. "But don't do it again! Seriously, next time you do something like this without talking to us, I won't be so nice."

I winced a little at her raised voice and drew back from her, suddenly a little uneasy again. "I won't. I promise, it won't happen again."

Jhanna looked at me, then Mona and Starlee, then she shrugged and pursed her lips.

"Okay."

I stared at her.

What?

That was it?

That was all it took for her to let it go? No more cold shoulder, no more angry glares, no more scolding? She'd just drop it? That wasn't like her at all.

"What, really? You've forgiven me, just like that?"

Jhanna shrugged again. "Well, yeah. I'm not happy about everything here, but if we're gonna be a team it won't help us to walk around being angry at each other all the time." She smirked a little. "And hey, you put me in charge of looking after her, so at least I get to keep an eye on her. Can't be too mad about that."

Then reached out her hand and patted my cheek playfully. "Also, you're lucky you're so cute- otherwise I might have wanted to hold a grudge, just out of spite."

She gave my cheek one last pat before walking towards the door towards the dining room, followed by Mona and Starlee, while I stood there trying to understand what she had meant with that.

Was she teasing me? If so, why like that, and if not why would she say that in all seriousness? And what did she mean when she said I was cute?

Starlee called out to me, snapping me out my confused thoughts and feelings. "We're gonna grab something to eat. Wanna join us?"

I snapped out of my thoughts and saw them all at the door, smiling expectantly at me.

So I smiled back, said "Sure!", and followed them into the next room.

Hey, at least one problem was solved at the moment.

A/N: Don't have to much else to say here, except stay safe and healthy. Hopefully things will get better soon, for everyone.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please, review, favorite and follow! G'night everybody!