A/N: Thanks to Ravenshell for being my beta!

Chapter 64

I feel like my body was puréed in a blender, but my right arm is what really hurts. I try to lift it but hiss in pain when it throbs like crazy. I loll my head to the side, squinting my eyes to bring things into focus. My arm is mummified, completely wrapped in gauze... and attached to a pipe? I groan in confusion as I blink a few times for a better look. There are blossoms of red decorating the wrappings. They kind of look like roses.

"Your wrappings need changing." Rolling my head to the other side, I see Master Splinter looking over me. I'm in bed in my room; I hadn't noticed until I saw my Unicorn Man poster on the wall. "I thought you would be more comfortable in your room." Sensei's holding a cup in his hands. If I'm in bed and he's in my room with a cup in his hand, it can only mean one thing: he's gonna give me some gross tea. He says it helps with pain, but it just makes me super sleepy.

"Drink," he says holding the cup to my lips as he tilts my head forward. "It will help with the pain." Told you…it's like reading from a script.

I groan. He presses the cup to my mouth and I'm forced to drink unless I want tea all over my plastron. It doesn't take long for the bitter sleepy tea to kick in as I find it harder and harder to keep my eyes opened. Bits and pieces of memories start to pulse against my temple. Donnie…Donnie mutated but he's still Donnie inside, I saw him but something happened—

"Ah!" The excruciating pain shooting up my arm breaks my train of thought as I try to squirm away from Master Splinter's touch. He shushes me and as his fingers rest against my forehead, I sink back against my pillow and close my eyes.

I force my eyes back open. I can't fall asleep now! What about Donnie?

"Your brothers are with him. All will be well."

Did I say that out loud?

"Yes, you did Michelangelo." There's a hint of humor in Sensei's words but it doesn't cover the sadness in his tone. "Sleep, my son." His soft fur touches my face as I start to fade from consciousness... wait, that's it. I just need to fade from consciousness...

When I open my eyes again, I'm floating beside myself. Wow, I'm pretty banged up. I felt pretty bad too before I drifted, but the farther I float from my body, the less pain I feel. As usual, the physical world is a little blurry, like looking through a frosted window, but the spirit realm is like 4k HD. Both April and Master Splinter's auras are a gumbo of emotions flip-flopping from sadness to fear to guilt. Don't worry, guys, I've been practicing my drifting; now it's time to put it to good use and help bring Donnie back. Bypassing the laws of gravity, I float upward through the underground until my spirit pops through to the topside. Now to find Donnie!

Chaos of stampeding and screaming humans pierces my ears, but the lost and confused cries of my mutated brother pierce my heart. Hiding in the shadows was no longer an option when Donnie fled through the tunnels, crashed through a wall, and derailed one of the busy subways in Chinatown. Donnie snaps and snarls at the people, agitated by their noisy movements. Raph and I try to herd as many of the people toward the exits as we can, but our help isn't appreciated. Once they realize we are humanoid turtles, they run everywhere except for the exits.

"Leave 'em, Leo! They'll get outta here quicker without our help." I nod in agreement with Raph. The best thing to do is to stick close to Donnie. It works. People started leaving pretty quickly after we moved away from the exits.

"Hey, Don, it's okay. Those scary people are gone, alright?" Raph starts talking to Donnie. Whining, Donnie's tail sways from side to side behind him. It hits the side of the subway structure causing small pebbles of debris to fall on us.

"Let's go home, Donnie. We can figure this out together." I offer a smile, the same smile I give all my brothers to let them know big brother Leo is here. Donnie lowers himself on all four, inching toward us. I keep smiling. It's working. I know he's still in there, that he can still think past his new primal nature. Donnie sniffs the air. His eyes widen and his pupils dilate as he looks over our heads toward one of the exits. "Donnie…hey! Look at me." He huffs through his large snout as his eyes flicker red for a moment. "You can fight this! I know you can." He sniffs at the air again, ignoring us as he nearly stomps on Raph when he takes tentative steps toward the stairs. "Donnie, No!" I make a grab for his tail, which only agitates him again. One quick whip sends me crashing into the window of the busted subway car.

"Leo!" Raph shouts. I groan as I stumble out the subway door covered in small cuts and nicks from the broken window.

"No!" It's too late. The last thing we see is Donnie's tail as he disappears up the stairs leading to the surface, to people, or more accurately to what Donnie perceives as food.

We run to the surface. He isn't hard to spot. We dodge and sidestep the running citizens as we try to come up with a plan.

"Guys! I got here as fast as I could." I spot Casey shoving through the hysterical crowd. When he reaches us, I notice his arms are full of fireworks.

"Really, Casey?" We're trying to bring Don home, not start a mutant parade!" Raph barks.

"Hey! I was too busy getting harassed by stupid EPF agents to find a hockey stick, so excuse me for improvising!"

"Actually, fireworks may be just what we need." I say as Casey gives Raph a smug look. "We need to get Donnie back underground. If you and Raph set off fireworks that direct him back to the subway, I can use this sleeping gas bomb." I show them the egg-shaped hand-crafted bomb Donnie made for me some time ago.

"You had tranq bombs and you're just now deciding to use it?!"

"I thought I could reason with him, okay?!" Raph backs down with a look of slight remorse when I snap back at him. I get it. Plan A of reasoning with Donnie went out the window when he nearly bit Mikey's arm off. Raph's ready for the action of Plan B. I know he doesn't want to tranquilize our brother any more than I do but what other option do we have right now?...I try not to think about the euthanasia I dropped in the lair.

"Alright," Raph sighs as he punches his fist and cocks his head to either side with an audible crack. "Let's do this."

When we hear sirens in the distance, we know we don't have much time.

Swerving my car, I block the road with it. My colleagues do the same to create a barricade and ensure no citizens are hurt in the crossfire. Grabbing my laser blaster, I slam down my trunk. We stand in awe at the creature that's currently roaring into the sky. It's huge, about fifteen feet tall with a tail that seems equally as long. Its glowing red eyes look like something straight out of a horror movie. It won't give Godzilla a run for his money, but it'll definitely do major damage to the city if it isn't stopped.

"Sweet mother of pearl, what the heck is that, Sage?"

"A monstrosity. I think it's what Lawson and O'Neil were creating in Lawson's basement."

"How did it get in Chinatown? ...I mean, something that big doesn't just pop up without being noticed."

"I don't know, Johnson!" I snap at the sudden stream of questions. Truth is there are a lot of loopholes in my theory, but that doesn't matter right now. "Our focus is on bringing this thing back to base. We'll figure out the nitty-gritty later." My attention is drawn back to the monster. It has a woman pinned under its claw. I cock my gun, wait until I hear the warm buzz of the my new tech weapon as its LED sensors light up along the sides with a glow. However, before I can fire, something else beats me to it. There's a series of loud pops that sound off near the beast, exploding clumps of snow dust around it. The monster releases the woman, shocked by the sudden repetition of loud bangs. Those aren't guns, those are ….firecrackers? "What the—?"

That's when I see him, the dark-haired kid that was with O'Neil's girl early today.

"Johnson, I thought you and Martinez scrapped that kid!"

"We did! Why the heck is that maniac out there? Does he have a death wish or something?"

Before I can respond to Johnson, I gasp as a green creature stands beside Jones. It's wearing a red mask. "Does that thing have a shell on its back… like a turtle?"

"Looks like it."

This creature isn't as big or tall as the Godzilla Mini-Me is; it's actually a little shorter than the Jones kid. The kid isn't running so he must know this human-size green turtle man. They're the ones setting off the fireworks. From the looks of it they're trying to corner the monster. "Oh, no." I gasp. They aren't just cornering it, they're trying to force it into the subway station.

The last thing we need is having to try and find a lizard monster in the sewers of New York. "Don't let that thing go underground!" I shout to my team as I aim my weapon and fire. The pink laser stream hits its target right in the back. The monster roars, spinning around and at the same time giving me a better aim. I take another shot. Johnson and the others fire shots as well. It screeches as laser blasts sizzle against its scaly hide. One of our blasts hits the creature in the head. It howls in pain as blood drips from its wound staining the snow beneath it. Just as I'm aiming again something whizzes past me, nicking my face. Touching my cheek, I feel the small burn of a cut as I pull my hand back to find that something drew blood. During the two seconds that I looked away, something else whistles as it draws near. It thumps against the barrel of my weapon. A ninja star? My gun heats up quickly and hums loudly as the little metal star blocks the energy blast inside the gun.

"Crap!" I toss the weapon and watch as it explodes to pieces in front of me. My team's weapons are similarly attacked with impeccable precision and they're forced to discard their weapons as well. I look ahead. The monster drops to all four, sprinting in the opposite direction. The green turtle man smirks at me before hightailing it after the monster. I do a double take when another green turtle man with a blue mask dashes out of the subway and follows the Jones kid and the red turtle. "Dang it, where's my backup?!"

TBC

A/N: Thanks for reading, guys! Feel free to leave thoughts and reviews. I love hearing from you guys! Thank you for your continuous support!

See you next chapter!

Poetique