Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2012 Fanfiction

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the TMNT franchise in any way, shape, or form. No money is being made. This is just a labor of love for the series. Please don't sue me, Viacom!

Alternate Universe fic.

Warnings: None for this chapter unless you really have a problem with angst. And if that's the case, why in the world are you subjecting yourself to this story!? Just teasing! ;)

Hello, everyone! So glad to see you here! I truly am! I know that is has been forever since I've updated this story and that many of you thought that it would never happen. I hate that I haven't been able to give this story the attention that I wanted to but Life is funny how it doesn't always want to let you do what you want. :( I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your patience with me, my hectic life, and my infrequent updates thanks to that hectic life. I won't burden you with my problems, but let's just say that Traumatic Uncertainty insisted on being the lead through that part of the dance that is Life. ^^;

Anyway, I'm sure you aren't here to hear me ramble. You're here for the story! I won't keep you too much longer. :) I want to thank everyone here for taking time out of their busy day to give my story a read. I really appreciate it. If you enjoy what you're reading, please feel to favorite, follow, and/or review my story. Your words are my encouragement and are what keep me going. I truly, truly love hearing from all of you. Thank you!

Chapter 17

Donatello's eyes fluttered open only to have his eye ridges crease together in confusion. When did he leave his lab? He pushed back his bedsheets as he sat up and swung his feet to the floor. "I must have been more tired than I thought," he murmured when he saw that he'd crawled into bed without even bothering to take his gear off. He shrugged, caulking his memory lapse up to exhaustion, and stood to start the day.

When he left his bedroom, he noted that the doors to each of his brothers' rooms were ajar, indicating that his brothers were already up for the day. "Did they let me sleep in?" An annoyed growl slipped out. "How many times do I have to ask them not to do that? It doesn't matter how many nightmares I have, trading practice time for extra sleep isn't going to help anything!"

Donnie pulled out his, or rather Raph's, T-phone to check the time. Maybe he wasn't that late. "What the?!" he gasped, his eye ridges furrowing together again. The digital clock's numbers raced by so fast that he couldn't make them out. He went to access the phone's menu so he could have it run a self-diagnostic only to be further confounded. Every word that came up on the screen was complete gibberish. He'd never seen a T-phone do anything like this before.

He walked into the main room with every intention of going to his lab and figuring this out when he spotted Raph. His brother was hammering away at the practice dummy. "I'd better tell him," Donnie thought with a sigh. "Hey, Raph. How's it going?" He swallowed at the irritable grunt his brother gave him. Great. Raph's dander was already up for the day. "Listen, I'm really sorry about this, but I'm going to have to keep your T-phone a bit longer."

The stout turtle stopped punching the dummy and gave him a sidelong glare. "Why?"

Donnie tried to ignore the intense disapproval on his brother's face, but his voice betrayed him with a stutter, "Well, i-i-it's doing some really weird things." He lifted the gadget so he could puzzle over it again. "I-I just want to make sure that it's in working order before- HEY!" he squeaked when the other turtle snatched the phone out of his grasp.

Raph tapped the T-phone's screen a few times before making a derisive snort. "What are you talking about? It's fine!"

"What?!" Donnie cried. Then he shook his head. "No. No, th-that's not possible. When I looked at it, the text was completely unreadable!"

"Well, it's not now," Raph growled and tucked the phone into his belt. As he turned back to the practice dummy, he grumbled, "And even if it was messing up, I sure wouldn't trust YOU to do jack about it."

Donnie's eyes went wide before indignation took over. "What do you mean by that?!" he demanded while grabbing one of the muscular turtle's arms.

Raphael whirled around, yanking his arm free and shoving Donatello to the floor in one swift motion. "Do I have to spell it out for you!?" he snarled at the bewildered turtle. "You've been nothing but a screw-up ever since we got you home! Asking YOU to do anything is pointless. For crying out loud, having you AROUND is pointless!" He growled at the wounded expression that fell over his little brother's face before turning around to continue punching at the practice dummy. "Waste of freaking space."

Donnie could only stare at his brother's back, struck dumb by the venom in Raph's words. Anguished tears started building in his eyes. He made a shuddering gasp and squeezed his eyes shut to force them back. It took a few moments for him to gather himself enough to scramble to his feet.

He watched Raph pummel the dummy while he tried to find his voice along with his own temper so he could lay into his brother. But even his anger had abandoned him. He let out a shaky sigh before dragging himself to the lab.

"Hey, Donnie!"

The tall turtle startled at the cheerful greeting and lifted his gaze from the floor. His blue clad brother sat at the lab's workbench while he adjusted a connection inside an old radio he had found. "Hi, Leo."

His miserable tone effectively ripped the smile from Leonardo's face. "What's wrong?"

Donnie tried to wave off his brother's concern. "I-It's nothing." Leo already had enough stress without him adding to it. "Raph is just being…extra Raph today."

"Ah!" Leo gave a dry chuckle. "He's been like that since he got up. He really needs to let last night go already."

"Speaking of that," Donnie began, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck as he approached. "I'm…sorry about what happened. I just wanted to help…and I really thought I had it together better than-"

Leo lifted a hand to stop his brother. "It's OK, Donnie. It's not your fault," he reassured. "Splinter told me you weren't ready. I should have listened."

Donnie winced and shook his head. He hated it when Leo blamed himself for things he couldn't possibly control. "He told me the same thing! I'M the one that didn't listen and then convinced you to do the same."

"Maybe," the other turtle conceded while standing up. "But as Leader, it's my responsibility to make sure that you guys don't get into anything you can't handle. I didn't do that last night. I won't make that mistake again."

The purple clad turtle wanted to argue the point more, but he could tell by his brother's face that he wasn't going to win this one. "Neither will I," he declared instead.

Leo smiled at him. "Good to hear."

"I promise that I'll try harder to get this under control. And next time, I WILL be ready!"

Leo's smile dropped into a somber frown. "Actually," he said as he came around the table to stand in front of his tallest brother, "there isn't going to be a next time."

"What? W-wh-what do you mean?" Donnie stammered.

"I mean that it's too dangerous for you to go to the surface."

"You're right. Right now, it is too dangerous, but once I get better-"

"Donatello!" Leonardo sharply interrupted while shooting his little brother an exasperated glare. "I think we both need to face the fact that that's not going to happen!" Once again, Donnie's voice caught in his throat and he could only stare at his brother. "You're never going to get better. And I won't risk everything on the impossible hope that you will." Leo angrily shook his head before brushing by Donnie. "Best thing you can do is accept that and learn to stay out of the way."

The lab echoed from the bang of its heavy doors as Leo slammed them shut behind him. Donnie stood there, staring at where his brother had been in stunned silence. Burning moisture returned to his eyes and his breathing became ragged. "It's not true. It's not true," he tried to drill into his head as he crushed his eyes closed to fight back the tears once more. But then…why would Leo say such things if they weren't true?

A rattling sound filled the lab as its doors were shoved open again. "There you are! Been looking everywhere for ya'!" Mikey yelped. He ran over to Donnie, grabbed him by his wrist, and pulled at him. "Come on, bro! It's an emergency!"

Donnie watched the smaller turtle until his tear-blurred vision cleared and he managed to summon a weak smile. "At least someone still needs me," he thought as he allowed Mikey to tug him into the main room's pit. "So, what's the emergency?"

His little brother held the TV's remote control up to him and stared over it with puppy-dog eyes. "The remote's broken and the newest episode of my super sentai action is about to start!"

He blinked a couple of times before he let out a sigh. "Mikey…you do know that the buttons on the TV do the same things as the remote, right?" His little brother's only response was to add a chin wobble to his pleading expression. Donnie gave Mikey an exasperated yet amused huff as he took the remote.

It was only an emergency in Mikey's mind, but it didn't matter. His little brother needed his help. That was enough for him. "Besides, this one's an easy fix," he thought as he pulled out one of the little screwdrivers he always kept at his belt, "I've been in this remote so many times I can fix it in my sleep."

Once the remote's casing separated with a quiet pop, Donnie tucked his screwdriver away so he could take a look inside. His small smile vanished as his eyes widened and he made a surprised gasp. Where he expected to find a simple circuit board, he instead discovered a tangled mess of wires. There were so many that it didn't seem possible for all of them to fit inside the casing.

A trickle of sweat ran down the side of Donnie's face as he tried to figure out the…the thing before him. Nothing about the remote's inner workings made sense. There were wires connected to the buttons sure, but they lead to other wires that were only connected to each other. A few of the wires never connected to anything but themselves to form color-coded Mobius strips along the walls of the remote's casing. "What in the world is going on here?" he couldn't keep himself from asking aloud as he pulled one of those Mobius wires free out of the casing. "Mikey, if this is a prank, it's in very poor taste."

The smaller turtle looked confused at the accusation. "What are you talking about, bro? It's the same remote we've always had."

Donnie shook his head with an incredulous laugh. "Oh, no it's not. I know our remote better than the back of my hand and this is not our remote," he insisted as he reached in to follow another wire to its source. The bit of plastic-coated copper suddenly hissed and began to squirm in his grasp. He squawked, dropped the remote, and took a couple of hurried steps away from the device. "What the heck was that?!" he yelped, his eyes wide with genuine horror. They only got bigger when several more wires joined the first to become a wriggling, hissing mass of snakes that coiled around itself inside the remote.

Mikey aimed an impatient glare at his big brother. "Donnie, quit fooling around! I don't have time for jokes." He bent down to pick up the remote, heedless of the dozens of little jaws reaching for him.

"NO!" Donnie shrieked and snatched the other turtle's hand to safety.

"DUDE! What is your problem?"

"Snakes!" Donnie gasped out. "The remote is full of snakes!" When he looked to make sure the creatures weren't about to slither after them, his eyes filled with shocked confusion. The snakes and wires were gone. All that remained inside the remote's casing…was the circuit board that he originally expected to see.

"What?!" He fell to his knees and scooped up the remote. "No. No, t-this…this isn't what was there! There were wires all over and-and then the wires turned into snakes! They…they were reaching for you, trying to bite you!" he pleaded, desperate for Mikey's understanding but his brother only gave him a dark frown.

"Forget I asked!" the smaller turtle barked as he snatched the remote from Donnie's trembling hands. "I'll go see if Leo can fix it." Mikey stomped away until he got to the edge of the pit. Then he looked over his shoulder to scowl at Donnie with more disgust in his eyes than the taller turtle had ever seen before. "Seriously, bro," he spat out. "If you can't even do this, why'd we bother getting you home?"

That was the last stab Donnie's tormented heart could take. "Mikey," he breathed as hot tears flooded out of his eyes. His little brother scoffed before stalking away, leaving the purple clad turtle all alone in the center of the lair.

"Pathetic," Raph's voice sneered from nowhere.

Donnie squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his hands to his ears with a sob, "No."

"We wasted our time saving you," hissed Leo's disembodied voice.

"No."

Mikey's voice followed with a low, "Would've saved us a lot of trouble if you'd just died."

"NO!" Donnie shot to his feet, raced out of the lair, and into the sewers, frantically trying to outrun the horrid voices. They continued to batter him until all he could do was whimper.

"Worthless!"

"Useless!"

"What good are you?!"

He ran until a creeping numbness settled into his legs, making his strides uneven. He stumbled to his hands and knees beside one of the murky ponds that could be found throughout the sewers. Too distraught and too tired to even try to get back to his feet, the shattered genius just sat there and wept.

"They're right, you know," whispered a new, yet still familiar voice.

Donnie managed to choke back his tears enough to look for the source of this new voice. There was no sign of anyone else around. Unease made his breathing become more ragged than it already was. His heart pounded in his ears. Eventually, his gaze turned to the still waters of the pond. When his eyes settled on his reflection, he realized that it glared back at him with pitiless condemnation.

He had enough time to gasp in alarm before a hand shot out of the water. It wrapped itself around his neck in an iron grip. He clawed at it, frantically trying to break free, but to no avail. It yanked him into the filthy water and pulled him down until he was completely submerged. A second hand lashed out, punching him in the plastron and robbing him of all the air in his lungs before it joined the first around his neck. The silt clouding Donnie's vision drifted away, revealing the owner of the hands choking him – a perfect doppelgänger of himself. It pulled him close until its nose was inches from his own. Utter loathing colored its unforgiving eyes as its voice…HIS voice…echoed in his mind. "What good ARE you?"

Donatello flailed wildly and surged up from where he'd fallen asleep on the floor of his lab. He whirled around, bracing his hands on the cool surface he'd been reclining against while searching for his duplicate. All he found was a pair of dark brown eyes staring at him in alarm. Confusion replaced terror. "Timothy?"

"Donnie nightmare," the gelatinous mutant cried. "Bad nightmare. BAD! Donnie scared me."

Timothy's words helped sweep away the last traces of sleep fog that still cloaked Donnie's mind. With a shuddering sigh, Donnie rested his forehead against the glass. "Sorry about that, Tim," he choked out. His eyes squeezed closed and he swallowed hard, trying to fight back the tears that wanted to follow him out of the dream. Even though he now knew that none of what happened was real, hearing those horrible words come out of his brothers' mouths was still more than he could bear. "They would never say such things," he tried to tell himself.

"Doesn't mean they aren't thinking them," the part of his mind that didn't want to let the nightmare go bit back. "You know at least Raph is." He whimpered and tried to hide more of his face against the mutagen barrel at reminder of what he'd overheard. "And he's right. As long as you're like this, there is no point in having you around. They should have left you to rot in that cell." A few tears won their freedom and began to refresh the trails formed the night before until they dripped off his chin.

Squeaking sounds compelled him to peel his eyes open. Timothy licked at Donnie's face from his side of the glass, desperately trying to offer comfort to the other mutant the only way he could think of. Donnie's eye ridges drew together and he tried to swallow around the knot in his throat as several more tears escaped. Why didn't anyone understand that he just wasn't worth the effort?!

"So," another part of his mind whispered, "…what happens to Timothy?" His breath caught in his plastron. "The Kraang don't need a retromutagen, so no one will ever find one. Your brothers don't have the chemical expertise to make one. And even if they did…do you really think they would bother to try? You know full well how much Timothy annoyed them.

"What about Mr. O'Neil? Without a means of gathering information, your brothers' only chance of finding him is a lucky shot in the dark." Donnie forced himself to sit up, making Timothy stop licking at the glass to watch him hopefully. "For that matter, do you really think they can stop a technologically superior foe without someone who has the know-how to neutralize that tech? Sure, Leo's doing well in his lessons and he is smart enough to figure things out eventually. But you know he's still months away from being able to handle even the simplest of Kraang tech on his own.

"And then there's the Shredder. With the Kraang supporting him, he's more dangerous than ever. Are you really willing to just give up…and risk watching your entire family die?" A vision of him kneeling among the broken bodies of Splinter, Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, and April forced itself into his mind.

Donatello hauled himself to his feet only to stagger like a newborn deer as the sensation of pins and needles punished him for falling asleep in such an awkward position. He braced himself against his workbench while he waited for feeling to return to his legs and bared his teeth in a tenacious grimace. "I did not go through all of that to give up now!" he growled at himself. "There IS a way to beat this. I just have to find it!"

"Donnie? You up yet, bro?" Mikey asked as he lightly knocked on his brother's bedroom door. In his other hand he carried a tray loaded with sliced fruit, scrambled eggs, a couple wedges of toast, and a hot cup of coffee. Even though breakfast usually came after morning practice, Mikey didn't see the harm in helping his older brother have a good start for the day. He was pretty sure that Donnie needed something to lift his spirits after what happened.

He'd wanted to do that spirit-lifting last night, but his purple clad brother never answered any of his knocks. That wasn't like Donnie, but Mikey decided that the other turtle needed some space. He would just try again in the morning. So here he was, trying again. However, Donnie still wasn't answering.

Mikey swallowed uneasily. He gave his brother the courtesy of knocking two more times before letting himself in. "Donnie?" he called as he peered around the door. Mr. Lepus balanced atop the pillow of his brother's meticulously-made bed. It was obvious that it hadn't been disturbed all night.

Now Mikey was worried. He had fought tooth and nail with his big brother to get him to promise that he wouldn't pull any all-nighters until he stopped having so many nightmares. Just like Leo, Donnie could be counted on to keep his promises. Something was wrong. He just knew it and he wasn't going to feel better until he found Donnie.

The smallest turtle hurried into the living room, blatantly ignoring Raph's demands that he hurry up, and headed straight for the next most likely place to find his brainy brother. When he realized that the doors to Donnie's lab were locked, the knot in his stomach settled deeper. He banged his fist on the metal door. "Donnie? You're in there, right?" No response. His eyes widened and he pounded harder on the door. Enough panic had entered his voice that the two eldest turtles hurried out of the dojo to find out what was going on as he shrilled, "DONNIE!?"

"I'm here," was his older brother's tired, almost irritable, response. "Where else would I be?"

Mikey almost broke into tears at the sound of Donnie's voice. "Dude, don't scare me like that!"

A long pause followed Mikey's choked declaration before Donnie made a soft, regretful, "Sorry, Mikey." Another long pause. "What do you need?"

"You to eat!" Mikey said with a relieved laugh as he hefted the breakfast tray as though he was offering it to the door itself. "I got all kinds of good stuff for ya', bro!" Once again, only silence came from the other side of the door. His cheerfulness faded back into worry. "Donnie?"

"I'm not hungry."

Mikey's eyes went wide with shock before they narrowed. "Like heck you're not," he returned, his voice becoming uncharacteristically stern. "I let you skip lunch yesterday because you said you were still stuffed from breakfast. And the fridge hasn't been messed with since last night, so I know you haven't eaten anything else!"

"I'll eat later. I'm busy right now."

"Nuh uh! I've heard that one before!" Mikey insisted. Even though his heart soared to hear that Donnie was working on something, he wasn't about to drop this. 'Little things' like eating and sleeping got chucked right out the window whenever his genius brother got too into his work.

"Mikey." The smaller turtle winced at the harsh tone in Donnie's voice. "Go. Away."

Michelangelo drew himself up, ready to fire back his refusal to yield, when a hand rested on his shoulder. He looked up at Leonardo, who merely shook his head. For a moment Mikey considered not listening, but his eldest brother's solemn expression reminded him of Splinter…and of their father's request that they be patient with Donatello. His shoulders slumped as he looked down miserably.

When Leo held out his hand for the breakfast tray, his little brother surrendered it without further protest. He patted Mikey's shoulder comfortingly before coaxing the smaller turtle into heading towards the dojo. "I'm putting yourfood beside the lab door, Donnie," he called as he bent down to do so. "Please…try not to forget about it?" He allowed a small smile to touch his voice in an effort to lighten the mood some, "You know how much you hate cold coffee." The other side of the lab door remained silent. Leo's smile fell and he made a quiet, resigned sigh before he moved to follow Mikey.

"Time and therapy," Donnie muttered under his breath as he clicked through the websites he'd found in his quest. He left his computer to walk over to his workbench, grab a book, and flip through it. "Therapy and time," he hissed after he'd read through his section of interest. "There isn't a therapist in the world that would take on a mutant turtle as their patient." Out of pure frustration, he slammed the book closed as he snarled, "AND WE DON'T HAVE TIME!"

He flung the text back onto the small pile of psychology books he'd gleaned from his collection. Since three in the morning, he'd been searching for something…ANYTHING…that could help him fight the mind-crippling turmoil within him. He gave the lab's wall clock an exhausted glance. It was now noon. He thought about the breakfast Mikey offered him five hours ago and sighed. By now the local vermin had beaten him to it, but he had been too busy to even think about eating before. He would still be too busy if he hadn't hit a brick wall.

Donnie collapsed back into his computer chair, hunched over to lean his elbows on his knees, and rested his head in his hands so that he could massage his temples. Every source he found said the exact same thing. Time was the best treatment for victims of what he'd suffered. Seeing a therapist or at least talking about what happened with someone could help with coping as well and was highly recommended. However, in the end, the victim giving themselves the time and patience they needed to heal was the only recourse.

"It's exactly what Splinter's been trying to tell me all this time," he lamented. "But with alien invasion looming on one side and the Shredder closing in on us on the other, time is a precious commodity. We just don't have enough of it to waste on me!" Despair began to pull moisture to the corners of his eyes once again. "Is there really nothing else I can do?"

His computer monitor flickered as its screen saver kicked in. He turned his tired eyes towards it, idly curious at which proverb the machine would choose to scroll by. A bitter laugh left him at the kanji the computer presented. "Of all the platitudes I plugged into you, that's the one you pick to spout at me now?"

He covered his eyes with a hand as his laughter became a touch manic. "That's just brilliant. Absolutely beautiful. Now…" he started, his voice becoming chillingly calm as he uncovered his eyes and stood up, "…how about you tell me…" He grabbed either side of the computer screen and squeezed tight enough to make its frame creak in protest as he bellowed, "EXACTLY HOW I AM SUPPOSED TO DO THAT!?" He knew he sounded ridiculous ranting his indiscriminate rage at the computer, but he just didn't care. He was tired. So very tired of everything. "You're the one with all the answers, aren't you?!"

Donnie whirled away from the machine, stomped over to his books, and snatched up one so he could snarl at it once more. "AREN'T YOU?!" His laughter returned only, this time, it was more than just a touch manic. "Come on now! Don't be shy! ENLIGHTEN ME!" He threw his arms out while turning towards where poor Timothy watched in horror as his friend seemed to become unhinged right before his very eyes. "How do I do that?! How do I take-" Donnie's outburst stopped as abruptly as it had begun when his gaze settled on Timothy. He stared at the other mutant as though he were seeing him for the first time.

"Donnie," Timothy whimpered fretfully as he watched the turtle approach to rest a hand on the glass separating them. "Worried about you, Donnie. Want to help! Tell me how?"

Donatello said nothing. He just stared intently at his friend, but it didn't seem like he really saw the gelatinous mutant anymore. After a few moments, Donnie turned his gaze to the side as he processed whatever notion had struck him. His brown eyes zipped back and forth with the racing of his mind.

His attention snapped to the book he still held. He started flipping through it with a feverish purpose while turning away from Timothy. Once he found what he was looking for, his eyes became riveted to the text. They didn't glance up once as he made his way back to his computer. He set the book beside the keyboard, making sure it stayed open to his page, and began another search. Within seconds, a dozen new websites replaced the old. He drank in every bit of information they offered.

Donnie absently brushed a forefinger back and forth under his chin as the idea that had seized him continued to develop with every article he read. It was utter insanity. Something born of a desperate mind. However, if he could pull it off, it would give them the edge they needed to have a fighting chance in this war again.

But would his brothers even let him try? A part of him didn't want them to – the part that insisted he was nuts for even considering this. He noticed that he'd begun to tremble and he gripped his arms in an attempt to still himself.

Sharp pain arced through his right upper arm, reminding him of his injury from last night. He looked at the bandage. His trembling slowed as he brushed his fingers over the dotted line of crimson that had already soaked through the cloth from the reopened wound beneath. The sight called forth the memory of the Foot Bots surrounding him and his brothers, their glowing eyes boring into them. He placed his hand over the bandage and closed his eyes as he rested his nose against his thumb.

When he opened his eyes again, a resolute frown had settled onto his face. The real question wasn't whether or not his brothers would let him try. It was whether or not he could convince them that his plan was a necessity. And the only way he could manage that was to make sure he had an answer for every question they could throw at him. He reached into his computer desk and pulled out a notepad and pen so he could get to work.

Michelangelo sighed miserably from where he knelt on the dojo floor. Today had not been a good day by any stretch of the word. Leonardo and Raphael had been arguing on and off ever since Mikey had tried to get Donatello to eat breakfast. It was the kind of arguing that came to blows more often than not. It didn't help that his brothers were arguing about something that Mikey wished they would just leave alone: what to do about Donnie.

Raph wanted them to corner Donnie and demand that their genius brother tell them exactly what was wrong. The red clad turtle was tired of 'pussyfooting around', hoping that Donnie would open up to them. As far as Raph was concerned, last night was undeniable proof that keeping what happened a secret was killing their brother. And he refused to just sit there and do nothing.

Leo, meanwhile, agreed that Donnie's silence was doing more harm than good, but he also felt that trying to bully Donnie into talking about something he wasn't ready for was not any better. "Master Splinter says that we have to be patient with him," he growled as he and Raph locked weapons and strained against each other.

"So…doing what Splinter says is more important than helping our brother," Raph spat.

"I didn't say that!"

"Then what the hell ARE you saying?! HUH!?"

Movement out of the corner of Mikey's eye drew his attention away from his squabbling older brothers. A broad grin lit up his face at the person who'd just walked into the dojo. "Donnie!" he called cheerfully, this morning's tiff instantly forgiven and forgotten upon seeing his purple clad brother. His grin fell the moment he noticed just how severe Donnie looked. "Dude, you OK?"

Leo pulled away from Raph and both turtles turned to see what had Mikey so upset. He barely managed to keep his eyes from widened when Donnie completely ignored Mikey to stride right up to him. The expression on his little brother's face was the grimmest he'd ever seen the tall turtle. He felt his own expression became grave. "What's wrong, Donnie?"

Now that he was face-to-face with Leonardo, all the saliva in Donatello's mouth vanished and his resolve nearly went with it. For a moment, the dread that he'd been fighting against was evident on his face. His eyes closed as he cleared his throat to push back his misgivings. He had to do this. There was no other way. His features smoothed out with his resignation and he opened his eyes so that they could lock with Leo's once more. He managed to keep a quiver out of his voice as he answered, "I have to go back."

Leo's eyes widened before settling into a stern glare. "No dice, Donnie. I'm sure the Kraang have stepped up the warehouse's security after last night. It's too dangerous to even go near that place right-"

"I wasn't talking about the warehouse," Donnie interrupted, making Leo blink in surprise. "I meant the Kraang facility where I was being held."

"WHAT!?" Raph shouted and stomped closer to his tallest brother. "Why in the world would you want to go back there?"

"Did you remember seeing something that we have to stop?" Leo asked, his sternness taking on the anxious tone he tended to get when it came threats to the world's safety.

"No," Donnie said with a quick shake of his head. He felt a pang of guilt for worrying Leo so and had to turn his back to his older brothers before he lost his will to continue. "It's nothing like that."

"Then…why do you have to go back?" Mikey asked in confusion as he stood up and went to stand beside Leo.

"Because it's the one place where I'll have a chance."

"A chance to do what?!" Raph demanded hotly.

Donnie swallowed hard and half turned so that he could face his brothers again, "To infiltrate the Kraang.