Chapter 5

-Betrayal-

Casey stumbled out of the school, his head felt like it was stuffed with cotton that was drenched in lighter fluid and set on fire. He couldn't make sense of the fact that he was missing a chunk of his memory. The last thing he could recall was being with Donatello, watching the students through an open window.

Casey made his way around the outside of the building and spotted Donatello on the roof, seemingly ready to sneak in. Casey didn't want to risk blowing Donatello's cover so he dropped a plastic practice golf ball on the ground and pulled the newest weapon from his quiver. A golf club. Turned out golf wasn't as boring as he'd once thought. He took aim and swung, the plastic ball few true and strong and reached its target, pegging Donatello in the head.

Donatello stifled his scream and rubbed his head, looking in the direction the ball had come. He spotted Casey and jumped and flipped his way over to him. "Casey, there you are. You want to tell me what's going on?"

"What are you talking about?" he said.

"You brought the Power Supply here and ditched me to find April, you threatened me." he said. "And, oh yeah, you just hit me in the head with a golf ball!" he screamed the last bit.

"It was a practice ball." He corrected. "And I don't know what you are talking about. The last thing I remember is looking at the students through the window."

"Are you telling me you don't remember running off with the Power Supply?" Casey stared at him with a look that said, I dare you to ask me one more time. "Look, it doesn't matter, just tell me you still have it."

"I don't remember taking it so how could I know if I have it?" he asked. Donatello rolled his eyes and grabbed at Casey's hoodie pocket. "Hey! Buy me dinner first."

"Quit messing around," Donatello moved away from Casey when he found that his pocket was empty.

"I'm not, dude." Casey said. "Seriously, I have no idea what's going on and it's really freaking me out."

"Okay, this is bad. Let's think about this calmly and rationally, everything has an answer." Donatello tapped his finger to his cheek.

"Uh, D. I don't think we have time for that. Campus security is coming this way." Casey said and pointed to a couple of security guards.

"Right. Let's go."

When the duo returned to the lair they were surprised to see Leonardo pacing in the common room. "What's going on?" Casey asked, "You look more stressed than usual."

"What's going on is that there have been two more disappearances from April's school." He said, "I'm waiting until nightfall to send out a team to investigate."

"What? How? We were just there." Donatello said.

"I'm sorry, what?" Leonardo looked at them. "Correct me if I'm wrong and please do, you went out in the middle of the day to a school filled with people?"

"Yes." Donatello said, unable to lie to his brother.

"What if you had been seen, we don't know what we are dealing with yet, what if you tipped off this new enemy? That decision was too risky."

"Normally I would agree but this is April we're talking about. Casey and I couldn't just stand by and watch her work herself to death. We wanted to solve the case before she did." He said, "We weren't seen…"

"But?" Leonardo said.

"But we lost the Power Supply."

"You lost it? What do you mean you lost it? Why did you even bring it with you?" he asked.

"That was my bad." Casey said, "Even though I don't remember."

"What does that mean?" Leonardo could feel a migraine forming and it was going to be a big one.

"I have a theory." Donatello said. "But I need to test it first. I'm sorry I can't give you more than that. It won't take long." He said, retiring to his lab before Leonardo could ask any more questions he didn't have the answers to.

Casey swallowed hard when he noticed he was alone with Leonardo, "So… any chance that since this was a total accident I can get out of the lecture you're about to give me?"

"Not a chance."

"I didn't think so."

A couple of hours later Donatello, wearing a grim look, stuck his head out from his lab. "Guys, this is bad. Come here." Donatello said.

Leonardo and Casey went into the lab and saw Donatello at his computer, they gathered around him and he spoke, "My theory was right but it was only the tip of the iceberg. See the Power Supply, or Power Fragment is neither of those things as we think of them."

"You're not making any sense." Leonardo said, keeping his frustration in check.

"Stay with me, it's not a supply of power so much as it is an amplifier of power, but it's also a storage device for something very nasty. Getting it to work only requires thought." You see when I touched it earlier I was thinking about it working and then it emitted a sound only humans can hear." He said, taking a moment to see if Leonardo was catching on, he was.

"So this thing operates on the power of the mind?" Leonardo clarified, which reduced the confused look on Casey's face.

"Exactly." Donatello said. "It was just dumb luck, bad luck in our case, that Casey was in my lab at the time." Donatello pointed to his computer screen to reveal the music player program, "I managed to record the sound Casey heard." He said. "I had to lower the volume and change the frequency so that the two of us can hear it." He said to Leonardo then pressed play.

"Serve your new master, bring me the Power Fragment. Serve your new master, bring it to Springhill academy. Serve me. Serve me. Serve me."

"So Basically Casey was brainwashed in to bringing the Fragment to the school." Leonardo asked

"What? But how can that work when I only heard it for two seconds?" Casey seemed offended, how could something like that get to him so easily?

"That's the rest of the iceberg." Donatello said. "It's that powerful. I can influence people who only need a nudge, you missed hanging around April and in the back of your mind you wanted to see her. This frequency latched onto that and the Power Fragment hitched a ride, so to speak, to the enemy."

"Yes, it makes sense now, I'm the one who wanted to go out and find April this morning, and I remember that feeling coming out of nowhere." He said.

"It's my fault, too, I wasn't under the influence of the frequency and I went along with you."

"I would have gone without you." Casey said. "It's completely my fault."

"Okay, I'd hate to break up this bonding thing you have going on, but it sounds to me like the ones behind this could use the Power Fragment to control more people. You said it was an amplifier."

"That's right, I don't know the range but even a one mile radius is too many people, especially in New York." Donatello said. "We'll have to go to the school and get it back."

It was at that moment that Michelangelo and Raphael entered the lab, having just returned from studying the scene of the new disappearances.

"How'd it go?" Leonardo asked.

"It was really creepy, got bad vibes from it." Michelangelo said ominously.

"The trail was cold when we got there." Raphael said. "There were no signs of a struggle, like these two girls willingly vanished." Raphael said.

"Wait a minute. That makes sense now, why didn't I think of it before?" Donatello spoke suddenly.

"Want to fill us in, Donnie?" Raphael said. He hated it when Donnie got like this. It wasn't helpful and it was annoying.

"Maybe the students aren't being kidnapped, but are being persuaded to leave." He said. "Casey and I heard a similar frequency to the one used on Casey while we were at the school, it was coming from the students' headphones."

"Oh, yeah," Casey said, "What if they are being brainwashed like I was?"

"Brainwashed?" Raphael was even more annoyed that before, being out of the loop was so constraining, he clenched his fists in frustration.

"Long story." Leonardo said and shuttered from the angry aura seeping from his brother, "Which I'll tell."

April sprang down from a tunnel, happy that Raphael and Michelangelo hadn't seen her as they past. She waited until she could no longer sense them to risk moving because the Turtles were so in tune with the tunnels that the slightest out-of-place splash would have them on her in seconds.

April carefully made her way to the lair, adjusting her backpack, the weight of which encumbered her in more ways than one. She held the straps of her bag tightly just in case because if she happened to be spotted my Michelangelo he'd snatch it up, thinking it was filled with cool new human snacks. Which was usually the case. This time, however, April had to avoid that at all costs or her plan would be over before it started.

When April was at the entrance of the lair she tapped into her power to make sure it was clear. She could feel that the Turtles and Casey were in Donatello's lab, while her target, Splinter was in the dojo, meditating. Perfect.

April quietly hurried to the dojo and was sad for a moment, she loved the smell of the dojo, and most people would think it smelled like a gym but it didn't. It was a mix of incense and fresh earth, due to the magnificent tree in the room. It was April's favorite place in the whole city, and soon she'd have to say good-bye to it forever.

April placed her heavy bag down on the ground and Splinter opened his eyes at the disturbance. "Hello, Sensei." She said.

"Donatello, may I see you a moment?" Splinter voice came through the room and Donatello excused himself from the meeting Leonardo was having. He'd catch up on the plan later.

As he headed for the dojo he felt something prickle at his senses, something wasn't right. He picked up the pace and by the time he'd reached the dojo his Bo was in his hands. Though he wasn't ready for what he'd found inside.

Splinter was on his knees in the center of the dojo, his arms bound behind his back and his head bowed in shame. But that wasn't what had Donatello on edge, the first thing he noticed was the belt of C4 wrapped around Splinters torso. He resisted his impulse touch the bomb because he needed all of the facts first, the wrong move could spell disaster.

His eyes then fell on the discarded backpack on the ground, a familiar button caught his eye, and on it was a picture of a cat with a word bubble that had the mathematical symbol for mu: µ, which was funny because it was pronounced mew. He'd given it to April because she thought it was funny, the first time she'd seen it.

"April?" Donatello asked. "What's going on?"

She jumped from the tree and stood between Donatello and Splinter, her tessen out in front of her in a stance Donatello had never seen before. "Who did this?" he asked.

"See that's the problem you don't even think that I am capable of something like this." April said she leapt at Donatello, still trying to process what she had said, giving her enough time to disarm him. He quickly regained his composure and jumped away from her.

"April, it's not that I don't think you are capable of this, or rather that you don't have the ability, it's that you would never do something like this." He said. "We're friends, let's talk about this."

"Friends? Don't insult me." She said.

"Insult you? Are we not friends?" He asked, his eyes slid to his Bo, a few more steps and he could grab it, if he could stun her enough to knock her out he could stop her before things got worse.

"You think I don't know what you are thinking?" She used her power to lift the Bo and snap it in half. The look on his face was priceless. "That's right, I have my power back and because of all my extra training I'm much more powerful."

"April, did you come here to prove a point? You didn't need to strap a bomb to Splinter to do that." He said loudly, effectively calling his brothers into the fray.

Leonardo was the first one to enter the room, weapons drawn, followed by Raphael, Michelangelo and then Casey. "April?" Leonardo asked.

"Drop your weapons." She ordered. "You have five seconds."

"You can't take us all on at once, what if we refuse?" Raphael asked, pointing his Sai at her.

"Hmm, maybe I can't take you all on at once but that's why I have insurance, take a look at Splinter." She said, standing aside so they could get a good view of him. "I'll blow us all up if you don't."

"Drop your weapons, my sons." Splinter said calmly. "I can sense that she means what she is saying." The Turtles and Casey complied, reluctantly tossing their weapons to the ground next to Donatello's broken Bo.

"What do you want, April?" Leonardo asked with the most venom she'd ever heard come from him before.

"Donatello" April said, "I'm taking him. And don't you dare try to stop me." She warmed and pulled a switch from her pocket.

"Is that a…" Casey started.

"A Dead Man's switch." Michelangelo added, yeah he'd seen a few in his comics.

"That's right." April said, "If any of you move before I'm clear I'll drop this and New York will have a serious traffic problem."

"Okay, April, look, why don't you just calm down. I don't know what's going on with you lately or what has you this desperate, but whatever it is we can help you." Leonardo said.

"I don't need your help. I don't need anyone's help." She spat. April crossed the room and, careful not to lose the pressure on the switch, pressed her tessen against Donatello's back. "Move, Donnie. Let's go." She said urging him toward the exit. "Don't try to follow me either, the range on this switch is ten miles."

"We all know you wouldn't really kill our Sensei, YOUR Sensei." Raphael said, taking a step closer, he wasn't going to let anyone take his brother not even April. Leonardo stopped Raphael's advances with and outstretched arm, which earned Leonardo a heated glare.

"Stop it Raph, there's something bigger going on here so we can't take that risk." Leonardo said, "If she is desperate enough to strap bombs to our Sensei then we have to let her go." Leonardo said.

"Listen to your leader, Raph." April said, knowing just what button to push. Raphael growled low in his throat, she never thought she'd be on the receiving end of that sound. It didn't make her sad though, it made her feel good, powerful, like she was a threat.

"April, I am giving you one more chance to change your mind. We'll chalk this up to a misunderstanding. We'll all go to the common room and have a nice talk and work it out." He said, his voice was calm but when Leonardo spoke like this it was the calm before the storm.

"But if you walk out that door," he continued, "you become our enemy and we won't rest until we find you. We'll do nothing but look for you and when we find you, and I can promise you, we will, you'll get no mercy."

April met Leonardo's gaze straight on, her strength never wavering and accepted his terms by shoving Donatello through the threshold of the dojo.