Chapter 15

Humming a TV jingle, I plop eight more hot dogs into a bowl and microwave them for twenty seconds. The smell of robust coffee fills my nose as I pour some into Donnie's 'No. 1 Genius' mug. Since he's not allowed to practice with us, Donnie spends his days and nights in his lab working on the retromutagen. After the whole alley incident, Donnie pretty much avoided everyone…. especially me.

When he would pass by me in the lair, I could see the guilt and shame in his aura and I just couldn't take it. So one day, I just marched into his lab and started talking about my newest comic book. He looked surprised for a moment, but relaxed when he realized I wasn't upset with him. He never said anything more about the kid he beat up and I continue to play dumb and don't ask. Even though D and me are cool now, I'm still kinda surprised he hasn't shooed me out of his lab yet. Even though he doesn't say it, I get the feeling that he wants me to stick around…. or maybe it's only because I bring him food.

"Yo, D! I got hot dogs and coffee just like you asked," I grin, holding up the bowl of wieners and coffee as I enter the lab.

"Thanks, Mikey." With a grateful smile, he lifts up his goggles. He happily starts snacking on the hot dogs.

"No problem, D," I smile with a nod. His appetite is changing. He's not eating every thirty minutes like he used to, but when he does eat, he eats a lot, mostly meat... mostly hot dogs. I watch as he scarfs down his seventh hot dog. I try not to stare or visibly wince at how fast and greedily he eats. A couple of nights ago at dinner, Raph said something about him inhaling food like a Hoover. After that, he stopped eating with us and started hoarding food back to his lab.

He polishes off the last of sixteen hot dogs before getting up to grab another canister of mutagen. His shell is facing me, so he doesn't see how I stare up at him in awe. He's as tall as Sensei now. Lately, he walks really stiff like each step is painfully uncomfortable. He really hasn't been himself at all. Sometimes, it's even hard to sense his aura; I have to look down at his plastron just to make sure it's still there. It's pretty scary in Donnie's aura. The darkness is still there, refusing to let go of the parts of his aura that it has already claimed. My secret internet searches are starting to become redundant. Donnie's been in a sulky mood for months now and it's just getting worse. If he doesn't look sad about something then he looks super angry…. it's either one or the other, but hardly ever anything in between. Usually I get sad Don, while angry Don is reserved for Leo, Raph, and Master Splinter. I'm kind of glad for that, because an angry Don can be pretty scary. I think Donnie and Raph have the worst tempers. The difference is when Raph gets angry it's pretty much one big predictable explosion filled with lots of cursing and punching stuff; when Donnie gets angry is like walking through a minefield…. whether you tread softly or try and run, you can never tell what will set him off or when it will happen, but it will happen.

He doesn't look so great either. I don't think I've seen him sleep in the past few days. Sometimes I fall asleep watching him work and when I wake up the next day, he's still working. Master Splinter always tells us the eyes are the window to the soul. Donnie's eyes are filled with determination to make this retromutagen, but there's also exhaustion and doubt lingering there with a strange dose of fear.

All the websites say darkness in auras represents negative thoughts that could morph into depression if the issue is not addressed. I can't help thinking that maybe this is more than just a growth spurt and depression. I can't explain it; I just know my aura senses are tingling. Biting my lip, I put those thoughts on a sticky note inside my head, making a mental reminder to talk to Sensei about it. I don't think he's mad with Donnie anymore. Master Splinter's aura just looks exhausted with a deep hurt I don't think I'm old enough to understand, but he would still want to know if I thought something was wrong with Donnie.

"So you think you have enough mutagen now?" I ask as he takes several gulps of coffee. Leo, Raph, and me were able to find more mutagen canisters near the docks, but not before fighting off Nessie. That's the name I gave the mutant we found guarding the mutagen. Nessie totally had the hots for Raphie, ah… but that's a tale for another time.

"Yeah, this should be more than enough, I don't have much time… I mean, with the mutated citizens out there and all." I nod in understanding as he pours mutagen into a beaker to boil it on a hot plate. With my knees on the lab stool, I lean over the table to get a better look at what Donnie's doing. The chair creaks and whines as I balance it from four legs to two and back again.

"Mikey, stop that." He sounds distracted, but not annoyed. I pull myself out of my thoughts as the stool clunks down on four legs again.

I sigh nonchalantly as I watch the mutagen start to boil into big frothy bubbles. I tap my wrist and knuckles against the table and beatbox a few hot beats as he lowers the temperature on the hot plate. "So, April came by this week for practice. She asked about you…. again." April never asks about Donnie, she just kinda frolics back to his lab and disappears in here for hours at a time. Ever since their kissing session, April pretty much avoids Donnie's lab, and Donnie doesn't exactly go out of his way to talk to her either. It's like watching two rhythm-less people trying to foxtrot, neither one is comfortable around the other. If kissing a girl makes things this awkward, then I'll pass thank you very much.

"She knows I've been busy, Mikey."

I shrug. "That never kept you from hanging out with her before."

"It's better this way…" he mutters dejectedly, more to himself than to me. I frown, but decide not to push the issue. Sticking out his tongue with a trademark 'hm', he looks under his microscope and jots something down in his notepad. He writes a bunch of signs, numbers, and other gibberish that makes absolutely no sense to me. I don't pay much attention when the pen drops from his hand and rolls on the notepad, but when he doesn't move at all I start to freak out a little.

"D, you alright, bro?" I ask, but he doesn't answer… he just stares straight ahead with this faraway look in his eyes. There are small tremors coursing through his hands as he tightens them into fists… wow, I hadn't noticed how scaly and big they are now. I dare to look at his aura and gasp as the previously sluggish darkness is now bubbling to life, covering more ground of his aura. "Earth to Donnie, come in dude!" I lean over the table and shake him by the arm.

"That's not true!" His low voice is rushed and a little panicked as he breaks out of his trance.

"What's not true?" I ask, not bothering to hide the worry in my tone. His eyes are like saucers as he stares at me, a little dazed. Blinking owlishly, there are traces of both confusion and distress in his brown eyes.

"Nuh-nothing, just…. correcting a formula…" He fumbles to pick up his pen and starts writing in his chicken-scratch handwriting again. I glance down at his aura. I picked up some aura tips from the internet, so I'm practically a pro at reading them now. Auras aren't just readable, but if you listen, sometimes they talk. Well, maybe not full-fledged conversations, but more like whispers that sound like a bunch of creepy white noise. Sometimes I can pick up on the whispers without having to drift. They're not exactly 'words', but more like strong impressions that represent words. Like right now, Donnie's given off some really strong impressions, broken sentences like 'You fail… no good'….okay, so my translating sounds like a three-year-old…. it needs a little work, but you get the point.

"Man, D, it's pretty awesome how you're making this retromutagen. You're gonna save a lot of people, bro," I remind him with my most endearing smile. I won't let him give in to those impressions; I won't let his aura accept those horrible words as truth.

"I just hope it works." He breathes out a weighty sigh.

"Hey, it worked on Mr. O'Neil, right?"

"Yeah…" He gets this lost look in his eyes again. The whisper of impressions sounds like a tidal wave as the incoherent babble floods my ears. If it sounds like a rushing water to me, I can only imagine how loud and overwhelming it must sound to Donnie.

"Hey, D?"

"Hm?"

"How do you kill a mime?"

The heavy melancholy in his countenance shifts slightly, as he huffs out a chuckle. He gives me that small toothy smile I haven't seen in a while. "A silencer."

I snicker. "So a blind man walks into a bar…"

"And a table…" Donnie's smile starts to reach his eyes as he continues the joke.

"And a chair…" He laughs as I finish the end of the joke. Rubbing his hands down his face, he frowns thoughtfully at the lab table. Several moments of silence pass between us. For a moment, I think he will flip and tell me to get out.

"Have any more jokes?" He speaks softly with an uncertain smile. My face cracks into a huge grin. That's the only invitation I need to start telling more corny jokes and puns. In between our laughter, I steal glances at his aura. The darkness is still there but it isn't moving anymore. I can totally help D get over this depression. Piece of cake.

You're a fool to think you can stop this. I'll destroy you and your—

"So what do you get when Chuck Norris walks into a monastery?"

Yanked away from the vicious voice in my head, I offer my little brother a half smile. "I haven't the slightest idea."

"Nun-chucks."

"Seriously? I was pretty certain Chuck Norris invented the nunchucks when he defeated 100 evil nuns with two rulers tied together."

"Ooooooooooooh!" He cups his fist to his mouth and bobs his other hand up and down like a wanna-be hip-hopper. "You get mad props for that one, bruh! Haha!"

I smile a little more at Mikey's antics. He starts telling a long-winded joke as I extract the core essence from the mutagen and place it in a culture plate.

Doesn't his voice grate your nerves? If you gut him, he'll make a lot less noise.

"…the boy was named 'Denephew'….Get it? 'Deniece, Denephew?'"

I snort at the corny play-on-words. "Yeah, clever. Sounds exactly like something you would do." I'm glad Mikey and I are okay. If he shunned me like the rest of my family…. I don't know how I'd deal with this. Right now, he's the only thing keeping me from drowning in my thoughts. Pretty ironic that his random and nonsensical rambling would be the very thing keeping me sane. Mikey rarely leaves my side unless it's for hygiene or food purposes. He's actually a pretty decent lab assistant. I've definitely noticed an increase in his focus since helping me in the lab; sometimes I only have to ask him twice to grab supplies for me. "Mikey, will you hand me that graduated cylinder?" He nods before jumping off the stool, leaving it to toddle a bit before settling back on all four legs. A kind smile inches its way across my face at my little brother's eagerness. He thinks he's helping make the retromutagen for the city. He doesn't know I'm actually making an inhibitor for my mutation. It doesn't matter, he doesn't need to know. His help and presence are appreciated all the same. He has dubbed himself my 'lab dawg' (which is apparently similar to having the urban and proverbial 'ride or die' road dawg). However, despite his best efforts, by 2:30am he's usually curled up on the medbay asleep until practice the following morning.

Practice that you are no longer welcome to.

My eyes grow cloudy and moist at the thought of being banned from further practice.

Doesn't it make you angry that you're not good enough for their stupid practice? ...Or maybe you are good enough. Good enough to take them all out and then bask contently in their disembowelment.

There was a time when I found comfort in the realm of my mind, taking pleasure in the wealth of knowledge accumulated there. Now my mind has become a place of nightmares, filled with atrociously vile thoughts and bad memories.

Memories of being teased, criticized, excluded, left behind, and dejected. And then there's the anger… always the anger…

"Dude, you're zoning out on me again," Mikey says in a concerned sing-song voice as he waves my requested cylinder in my face.

"Suh-sorry… thanks, Mikey." I briefly close my eyes and anchor myself back in the lab with Mikey and away from the sudden mental image of me slitting the throats of my family members. I used to like being alone in my lab with my thoughts, but now my thoughts terrify me, smother me in to a cloud of darkness that I fear will eventually overtake me. These… these emotions I'm feeling are dreadful, absolutely terrifying.

They don't have to be.

I look under the microscope at a new blood sample. I discovered the mutagen is not just destroying random cells. It is specifically obliterating my human DNA, latching on to my reptilian genes and…. manipulating them. With a little more research, I might be able to find a pattern in the manipulation, maybe even figure out exactly what my cells are mutating into.

I sigh as I dust a flake of skin from forearm. I'm shedding again. Whatever I am mutating into is apparently large. I shift from one foot to the other. I feel like I'm outgrowing my body. The arm and leg slots of my shell are starting to feel really uncomfortable as they cuff snuggly around my deltoids and quadriceps. The fact that I have no idea what's actually happening under my shell makes me even more anxious to create this inhibitor. I still reflexively gag and shudder when I think about the raw meat I ate. The scariest part is the loss of control. It felt sickeningly instinctual as I crammed the packaged meat into my mouth. I fight the urge and haven't made a habit of eating raw meat, but instead just eating more meat in general. Hot dogs are plentiful and cheap so it's mainly what I eat. My metabolism is fluctuating again, decreasing below the norm. It would probably explain the fatigue and why I'm going longer periods of time without eating. If my metabolism is shifting to such extreme levels, there's no telling what else is out of sync in my body. Lately, I just feel like I'm falling apart.

I yawn as I take a final gulp of coffee from my mug. Exhaustion fights for my body and mind as I rub my eyes back into focus. Even if I wanted to sleep… I can't. I've fallen asleep a few times only to be jolted awake by slaughtered images of my family with their blood on my hands….. always on my hands.

Adding a drop of the enhanced retromutagen to my blood sample, I watch fervently through the microscope for any changes. My shoulders drop in disappointment.

I feel a soft pat on my shell. "Don't worry, bro, you totally got this. " I look down at Mikey, not realizing he managed to pick up on my failed attempt at creating an inhibitor. "Maybe you just need to try something different, you know, think outside the box." I frown thoughtfully at my blood sample. Something is missing. Everything I've done so far with the mutagen has been through trial and error, but if I had some kind of 'cheat sheet' of mutagen properties, maybe I could figure this out quicker. Maybe I wouldn't even need an inhibitor and I could skip straight to an reversal antidote.

"Donatello, Michelangelo, team meeting in the kitchen." Mikey and I look at each other at the sound of Leo's brief instruction and sharp pound on the door. Neither of us have any idea what this 'team meeting' could be about. As domineering as Leo's been lately it could anything from a lecture on closing cabinet doors to someone sneezing the wrong way.

Finding a stopping point, Mikey and I join Raph and Leo in the kitchen. They're already standing around the table apparently waiting on us. My height is an instant attention grabber as they gawk at me. I feel like the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about (at least not to my face)… and that nobody wants around. Feeling out of place amongst them, I sit at the table while they stand so at least I won't tower over them. Crossing my arms on top of the table, I drum the scratched wood lightly and sigh. I hope this doesn't take long, I don't have time to waste.

"When Raph was patrolling with Casey last night instead of practicing," Leo pointedly looks at Raph, who merely raises in eye ridges indifferently, "they spotted some Kraang activity near the old textile factory on Mercer St. It could be their new headquarters. We're going to scope out the area tonight, there will be no engaging in combat." He narrows his eyes at Raph.

"Can I just skip this scouting session, then? Because I really had my hopes on playing 'Crack-a-Kraang' tonight."

"No, I'll need you to cover the fourth quadrant of the building, and absolutely no combat, only observation," he reiterates with an annoyed glance at Raph.

My mood brightens as an idea comes to mind. "This is the perfect opportunity to hack into their central database for Kraang intel."

"We are not 'hacking' into anything," Leo frowns, immediately shooting down my idea.

"Psh, better than lame-shell surveillance duty." At least Raphael is okay with the idea. I'm not worried about Mikey; he'll go along with it too, but Leo's still not budging as he gives my red-band brother a withering glare.

"Like I said, observation only. We need to know what we're walking into before we go in guns blazing."

"I'm not going in guns blazing," I sneer slightly at his implication. "I'm just slipping in, grabbing data, and then I'm out." He arches a warning brow at me that I've learned to interpret as 'don't push your luck,' but I thrust onward with my proposition anyway. Kraang files are exactly what I need to finally uncover some of the hidden properties of mutagen. I was able to crack their pictogram-like language a while ago, so once I'm able to download the specific mutagen files, it'll be smooth sailing fixing my metamorphosing cells.

Maybe I can appeal to his logic. "Downloading this intel can hold the key to what the Kraang are really planning with all this mutagen. It could also—"

"Enough, Donatello. This isn't up for debate. You follow my orders and that's final. Got it?" Creasing my brows, I'm a bit taken back by his words. "Donatello…." I can't hide the incredulous expression from my face at his audacity to use that chastising tone with me like I'm some insolent child. He always undercuts me and criticizes me, and it triggers something angry and nasty inside of me.

"Yeah, whatever. Let's just go already." I don't wait for his response as I loudly scrape the chair against the floor as I push away from the table. Feeling their looks of confusion burrowing into the back of my shell, I head for the lab to grab my bo staff.

TBC...

A/N: Not much to say in this author's note. This chapter was fairly mellow, but next chapter picks up again with a little action and drama ;)

Because you guys are so awesome, here's a sneak peak in the form of a few 'random' lines from Chapter 16:

...

Despite my best efforts the floor groans beneath me. I don't have time to react as the floor gives way.

...

"MIKEY, LOOK OUT!" I shout, but I know as fast as my brother is, he won't be quick enough.

...

"WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!" I am too angry, too furious to lower my voice. "WERE YOU EVEN THINKING AT ALL?!"

...

Hmm...I wonder who is saying what to who? Stay tuned to find out! ;) And as always, please leave a review, I love hearing from you guys, it really makes my day! :) And wow...over 200 reviews?! That's crazy unbelievable! I am so appreciative of you guys.

Until next chapter,

Poetique