Donatello:
Fire. Heat. Hell.
Was he being burned alive? Was he dying? For a few anguished moments, Donny didn't know. He could sense, on some instinctual level, the change in the very air, the odd, roiling tension that seemed to build like an oncoming storm.
One moment, Raphael was clutching his bad arm, one heavy hand rubbing over the wounds, and his mouth twisted into another snarling argument. Mikey had worked up another bright, false smile, as he held both hands out, in an appeasing gesture. He was probably going to try and play peacemaker as usual. Donny wasn't in the mood to do anything but getting as far away from the Lair as possible.
He remembered the way Raphael kept his arm curled at his side, the way he kept leaning against the door jam, and panting, hard. The sharp line of pain between his eye ridges scared Donny. The ludicrous idea of Raph staying behind just infuriated him.
The words of caution were still hinged in Donny's mouth, ready to spew when he first heard the strange whine. It was an electric hum, that throbbed in his very veins, flooding the Lair, growing louder by the moment.
Donny noticed Splinter's odd action. The old rat had abruptly stopped, and turned his head sharply to the far wall of the Lair, tense and listening, his ears flared and fur bristled in alarm.
"My sons, enough of this foolishness! We must leave now!"
By then, Mikey pivoted towards the sound, his eye ridges raised in confusion. "Guys? What is that noise?"
Donny heard Raph's tongue click in his jaw, as his eyes narrowed. "They're here, ain't they? The same guys who took Leo."
Donny never forgot that look of horror that washed over his sensei's face, or the way that Raph had shut his eyes and groaned as he tried to drag himself up from the wall. Mikey stood at the other side of the Lair, with a forced smirk and a ready joke to break the tension.
And then, the firestorm.
There was a long, rolling wave of sound, rising high and then washing over the Lair like a riptide. Donny felt something like a gigantic breath being sucked from behind the wall, a weird ripple of the air, and then one last moment of an intact world.
The Lair's wall, composed of battered, steady bricks, exploded, sending a barrage of busted, jagged projectiles flying everywhere.
The tremendous flash of white heat had stunned them, their shadows and open hands burned into Donny's brain like the after image of a sudden photo.
The explosion happened so quickly that Donny literally didn't know what had happened. The far wall of the Lair convulsed, and the floor beneath his feet shuddered, and he was falling down into smoke and darkness.
He stared in disbelief at the geyser of smoke and heat that shot out a few bricks and left a gaping hole where the wall should have been. He only had time to glance at the disemboweled wall, and the shards of light flickering through the hole.
Donny's shell had taken the brunt of the impact, but he winced as his scutes were nearly scraped off. He tensed his muscles, pleased to note that nothing seemed broken.
Somewhere from behind, he heard Mikey yelp as he crashed, and toppled. Donny twisted around when he heard Mikey's strangled grunt, and then a long, terrible silence. Donny exhaled a sharp breath, the fear roiling in his gut as he groaned and tried to rise. He flinched at the weird soft material he had landed on, and looked down. He had the fortune of landing on the shredded remains of a dojo mat.
He went still when he heard the footsteps and the cursing of human feet storming over their floor, invading their Lair.
Voices, scraping metal, Karai's hated commands being issued in a steady stream as she lay hands on her hips and gracefully side-stepped the mess of busted bricks at her feet.
Donny shivered in hatred, fighting the urge to wrap his fingers around her neck and kill her with her bare hands. It would be satisfying, but utterly useless. They were outnumbered and he didn't know how injured his brothers or father might be.
The best he could hope for was to stay hidden and alive.
"Mikey? Mikey?!" Donny hissed as he tried to disentangle himself from the floor.
"Where are you?"
"Donny…dude, come here and shut up!"
Donny wrenched around to follow Mikey's voice.
Mikey was huddled behind the couch, a few feet away from Donny's corner. The vivid hue of his mask was dripping scarlet above one eye and Donny winced when he saw the large cut on Mikey's temple.
Mikey lurched forward a few inches towards the commotion in the living room, and hastily scooted back to his hiding place.
From the sounds of breaking glass, shredding and chaos, it sounded as if the Foot were more preoccupied with trashing their home to be too worried about finding the Turtles.
Donny winced when he felt Mikey's frantic grip, and sharp voice in his ear. "Donny, stay down!"
Mikey had wrapped both arms around him, and dragged him a few feet away to hide behind the massive couch.
"Mikey, what are you doing? Where's-"
Mikey frantically shook his head, and jammed a finger across his mouth. "Donny, shut up!"
Mikey said nothing, only cupped the back of Donny's head in his hands and shoved his brother's head down out of view. He could feel Mikey tremble against him, as he hunched as low as he could to stay hidden.
Donny heard the unfamiliarhuman shouts filling the Lair, the thud of too many feet. Squinting, he peered out from behind the battered remains of the couch, and swallowed hard. The air was still filled with smoke, the haze smearing everything. He swallowed back another cough, and went rigid as a hunted animal.
The Foot soldiers were flooding through the gaping hole they had blasted through the wall, in one long, dark, unending line.
The Lair was as open and exposed as a wound, and half of his family was gone. Donny flinched when he felt Mikey's hand paw against his arm.
Tilting his head to listen, Mikey timidly lifted his face a few inches to peak from behind the couch. He quickly dropped back down, shaking.
"I can't see Raph or Master Splinter. Donny, what do we do?" Donny swallowed hard, tried to breathe through the smoke, and scrape together enough reassurance before he answered.
Author's Note: I am not good at writing transitions from one scene to another. In this chapter, this story is told from both Donny and Raphael's viewpoint as the explosion happens, and what they are feeling at the same time. Again, please excuse the sloppy transition, and enjoy the rest of the chapter:
Raphael's viewpoint.
Now, normally, I am in a pissy mood to begin with. For me, it's as much a part of me as my own skin. Now, if you add in the fact that my arm was starting to cinch up and throb to the point of me almost tearing up, you can see why I'd be unhappy, right?
Donny's arguing wasn't helping much. For me, the problem and the answer were simple, easy to do, and made sense. The Lair was being watched by a group of bastards who were intent on storming our home and killing us-violently.
And I was hurting, which never improved my mood. My wrist was numb, throbbing with an icy ache that seemed to radiate from the very bones. The slice site had nothing holding it together but Donny's neat little stitches, and the pieces of skin he had patched over the hole. Donny had done good, considering that we didn't have much medical supplies, or an actual doctor.
My wrist was all wrapped up and puffy, like some weird silk worm attached to my arm. My fingers were swollen, and twitching, which made Donny worry about some sort of nerve damage. I couldn't grip my sais. Heck, I couldn't even make a fist with that hand.
And, now? Here we were, with Leo's possible killers on the way to do us in. I wasn't sure how far we would all get, or where the hell we would go. I looked around the brick walls, feeling sick at the thought that we may be in our own tomb. We were already underground, all that was left was to bury us.
I don't remember much of the actual explosion. All I do remember was the angry, stupid words between Donny and me, and the way Donny was scowling and reaching towards me when the wall blew up.
You ever see one of those moments in the movie, where everything seems to be in slow motion? That was sort of what it was like. I heard the weird, sharp hiss of something whistling, and scraping against the bricks and then this strange, pop and a roar that sounded like thunder rolling.
I was knocked off my feet and sent rolling back into the dojo, my shell clattering against the weapons rack and sending Donny's bo and Mikey's chucks to the floor. What saved my life was that I wasn't standing by the wall when it blew out. I had been far enough away that I had only been knocked off my feet and tossed around a bit. Thank God I didn't hit my arm, or I might have started crying. I squinted as I slowly rolled to my plastron, and bit back the grunt as I shakily grabbed the shelving and hauled myself upright. I nearly fell twice before I leaned against the wall and managed to drag myself back into the far corner of the dojo, hoping that the shadows would hide me a bit longer. I craned my neck to see what was happening. The bricks had shot through the air, and landed in a massive, crumbled, smoking heap at the edge of the huge hole where our wall used to be.
Through the haze, I could see the Lair, gray and hazy, as if in a smeared nightmare. The furniture was jutting out, dark and shadowed, the walls black, my lungs filling with the fumes and the screams, and before I knew it, I was choking.
I was hacking, the breath seizing in my lungs, clawing against my throat, and I shoved my good arm over my mouth to keep the noise stuffed into my elbow. My arm, by then, was clenched up and twitching, and I was flushed and sick and unable to do too much more than avoid falling on my face. I caught myself against the wall to avoid the total collapse. I compromised by slithering to the floor and feeling the dark wave of sweating ache and trembling sickness fall over me. It felt like I was dying.