Shutting Down

Leonardo held as still as possible and breathed slowly, inhaling the spicy incense that swirled around his motionless form. Letting the familiar scent and surroundings of the meditation room soothe his frazzled nerves. Once again, he forced away all conscious thoughts, shutting his anxiety and frustration in a small mental compartment where he hoped it wouldn't interfere with the vital influx of power he drew from the earth.

Right now, he must recharge. He would be no use to anyone if he didn't. He smoothed his features into a calm mask, trying to maintain at least the facade of control, both for the team and Luna.

As always, they required his confidence and resolve. She needed his strength, for something was horribly wrong with the young goddess. Night after night, life and light drained from his mate, weakening her energy and celestial power.

Leo spent last evening, and several previous ones, by Luna's side, though not in the way he wanted. Knowing she would object to his plans, he stayed away until she fell asleep, then crept into her room and poured every iota of energy he owned into her. He couldn't prevent the drain without knowing the cause, but he would stop it from consuming her, at least, for a little while.

Panic stabbed through the bond and Leo jolted to his feet. Startled out of the light trance he worked so hard to achieve, he spun wildly about seeking balance. How much time had passed? Minutes? Hours? Fear smashed into him like a physical blow. He launched himself in the direction of the disturbance letting the terror lead him to...Master Splinter's room? He tempered his steps out of habit as he approached the screen and stopped altogether when Raphael's angry growl reverberated from the other side.

"Be at ease, my son," Splinter's voice, barely reached where Leo stood. "I do not declare her the demon, merely observe its taint upon her."

Shock at those words kept him from announcing his presence and Leo sank into a crouch where he stood, concentrating on his father's voice as the story unfolded. He lingered for the better part of an hour, his muscles locking down with each new revelation.

His father witnessed the horrible rape of his mate? The thought was horrifying, for Splinter knew Leo experienced it as well. Equally startling was the discovery that Donnie had acted as Luna's therapist, working patiently to draw out her pain like poison from a wound. His brother accomplished far more than Leo gave his credit for, and Leo gave him a ton already.

Guilt overwhelmed him as his father recounted Mikey's sacrifice and jealousy burned when Splinter evidenced pride in Raph's actions. The jealousy was not for his father's affection but for every second that his brother spent alone with Luna. The image of their kiss in Don's lab burned through the forefront of Leo's mind but was smothered by Raphael's next words.

"Whatever it takes, Father," Raph said. '"I will get Leo as soon as she wakes."

Raph's quiet statement made Leo pause to re-examine his own feelings of inequity. Raph had set aside his ego and accepted he was not the solution Luna required.

After a poignant pause, Splinter spoke again.

"Ah... my son, Leonardo has already tried and failed. It is not he that can address her injury."

Leo collapsed as if sucker punched. He might admit to his shortcomings in private, but how did his father know? And if neither he nor Raph could help, then who?

"Not Leo? But you said only my brother..." Raph said. "Another bond?"

The devastation in his voice matched the incredible pain welling up in Leo's heart and Splinter addressed both of them when he said, "I am sorry, my son."

Leo couldn't move. The agony of the revelation so intense that he remained frozen in place. So motionless Hades might have missed him if he hadn't been specifically seeking the blue banded leader.

Their eyes met. Leo's pain filled and broken, Hades' glowing, yellow and warm, with sympathy.

"You did everything you could," Hades said, sensing the source of his agony "this simply isn't your battle to fight."

He extended a hand that Leo hesitantly accepted and easily pulled the nearly six-foot turtle to his feet.

"Come," he said. "It will be some little while before we can act, but we must be ready when the opportunity presents itself."

Leo cast one longing look at the screen dividing him from his beloved, then inclined his head to Hades. If Raph handled this without breaking than he could as well and if Luna needed this...there was no question about his response.

Four humanoid turtles, a bipedal rat, a human, two fiery souls, and two ancient Greek gods crowded into the lab. Really, it was too much for one space to handle, even a room as large as Donatello's studio. But no one wanted to leave, despite the narrow confines.

Luna lay full length on Don's newly enhanced and calibrated scanning bed with Raph and Leo on either side. Splinter stood back out of the way with Michelangelo and April while Don manned the computer controls.

Hades positioned himself at the head of the table leaning against the nearby wall, his posture lording over the rest of the room's occupants. He viewed the proceedings through slitted eyes, a slight smile resting on his lips.

Luna fidgeted. Shame colored her cheeks with a rosy blush and she wanted nothing more than to retreat to her new room and hide away until her emotions cooled. Instead, she lay at the center of attention. She had tried in vain to protect her family from the horrible truth that she might be the enemy in their midst. The demon everyone most feared.

They were having none of it.

Since she awoke, a little less than an hour ago, each of the people standing around her had taken her to task for her reclusive behavior and her refusal of their assistance. Even April had put in her two cents, saying Sol worried so much it broke its habitual silence and spoke to her, a human, about talking some sense into the goddess.

Luna blushed and stuttered through the whole ordeal, finally giving in to their demands to allow Donatello to examine her though she wished she'd insisted on privacy. Now she lay on a piece of cool glass in the center of Don's lab wondering once again at his clever meshing of technology and magic.

When the genius set his heart on something, nothing would stop him from accomplishing it. Goose bumps formed on her skin at the thought. Last time she checked, Donatello set his heart on her.

When Don glanced up from his console across the room, Luna's eyes were wide, her face pale, and her lower lip trembled. His gaze softened and he smiled more gently than ever before, wishing he knew of a better way to offer comfort in this unnerving situation.

"Ready?"

The single word, uttered with such compassion and care, made tears form in Luna's eyes and she looked away to keep herself focused on the task at hand. The others stared in Don's direction but he ignored them. He only had eyes for one person.

The goddess braced herself, closed her eyes, and nodded. He flipped a switch.

Warm, gentle, nourishing light emerged from the entire surface of the table beneath her. She drew a sharp breath and let out a subdued, yet satisfied, hiss. This was like basking in the combined strength of her parents power! Healing in a deep, sublime, way. Her lips relaxed into a smile for the first time in days.

"That's stage one," Don explained, he eyes flicking back and forth from Luna to the read out on the screen in front of him. "It's pretty basic, tracking vital signs and whatnot. In mortals the light enhances the cells making them more efficient and self sustaining. In immortals, it reads and reinforces general power levels."

He frowned at the screen, the line between his brows becoming more prominent. Her results were lower than expected but she did occupy a mortal body and had only regained two parts of her celestial soul, so they wouldn't be the same as Hades.

But Luna's readings were so low as to almost not register at all. He punched a few buttons and turned a dial to double check those numbers, wondering if he somehow miscalibrated. Stage two would show him more.

"Leo, Raph, let go of her so I can start the main scan," Don said.

Both reluctantly released her hands and Don activated another switch. An almost imperceptible keen announced the increased power flow from the crystal beneath the lair. Master Splinter twitched an ear and winced in response.

The scan bar lit up below her feet and moved smoothly upward, but the moment the concentrated light struck Luna's form, it shattered. Her physical body remained on the table, but five images of her projected above the table in different colors.

Far left, a blue 3-D like hologram shone strong and clear. Her whole body being reproduced with incredible detail in exactly the same position as her mortal one. Two short energy tethers extended from it. One stretched to Leonardo, the other connected to Sol.

Next to the blue Luna lay an equally sharp red one with lines connecting to Raph and Fina. A dim, silver, goddess held the middle position, so faded, it was hard to make out her expression.

To its right, an orange glow with no tethers appeared. Blurry and more like an orange blob, it was hardly recognizable as human shaped.

Far right was a violet Luna. Clear, not fuzzy like the orange, but dimmer even than the silver. Blackness obscured the form from its feet to its waist. What little violet remained, dimmed and brightened in irregular patterns as small shots of blue from Leonardo appeared and disappeared.

All the brothers exchanged glances as the the significance of the colors and tethers registered. Previously, none of them connected Sol and Fina's colored flames to Raph and Leo's preferences, or if they had, the anomaly was dismissed as simple coincidence. But with it laid out in front of them like this, the correct conclusion was impossible to ignore.

Raphael gasped out what everyone else was thinking in harsh surprise.

"All of us?"

His eyes narrowed, his jaw tightened, and he turned away from the projections. He clenched a fist and kicked a small piece of discarded equipment that lay conveniently unattended on the floor. It smacked into the wall with a loud clatter and fell back with an even more significant noise. Luna flinched at both, surprised at the sound and his tone.

"She is going to end up bound to everyone?"

The fury was plain in his voice and Hades glared across the room at him.

"You would prefer her bound to no one?" Hades asked.

The quiet menace in his voice drew all eyes, as he pushed away from his casual stance against the wall and loomed over them. Luna reached out a hand in silent protest, but he ignored her.

"Nothing lasts forever, young one." Hades said, and his aura displayed substantial power. "What is done can be undone, if an ancient god gets involved. As weak as she is right now, Luna could not stop me. I can make it painless for her, but for you... casting her away has consequences."

Everybody tensed. Some intending to leap toward Hades, others preparing to cover the goddess from any flying debris that might result from the coming brawl.

"You can't," Leonardo said. His calm, even, tone cut through the tension in the air with the same ease as his katana cut through everything else.

"Oh, I don't doubt you could undo the bonds, and you certainly have the capacity to punish us for the insult to Luna," Leo said. He turned and gave a small bow of apology to his beloved before leveling a grim glare of his own at Raphael, "but if you do, you will be interfering in a punishment set by Zeus. That would violate the contract among the old gods, igniting a war you have done your best, so far, to avoid."

"Wars come and go, young one." Hades replied with a small shrug but the undercurrent of danger had gone out of his tone.

"You've battled with your brother before, my lord, but you are the one who taught me how to hold a grudge," Luna said, her voice flat as she raised herself on one elbow to stare in the direction of the older more powerful god. "Even if you erased my bonds you couldn't take my memories. Harm my mates -my family- and my vengeance will be unreal."

Her statement ended in a threatening growl that would have done Raphael proud. Seizing energy directly from the crystal core, she supplemented her strength. Eyes blazing, she prepared her defense. She would not allow threats, even idol ones, against her loved ones.

The five projections of Luna disappeared as she diverted energy from the machine but not before the monitor registered a significant increase in clarity and power from the center silver form. Her celestial essence had been reinforced.

Hades mouth quirked ever so slightly into something Donnie swore was a smile. Perhaps this had been his plan all along, but the smile, if that was indeed what it had been, disappeared so fast Don thought he might have imagined it.

Instead the dark god dipped his head in her direction and gentled his aura. Luna followed suit, releasing her stranglehold on the crystal node, before lying back down. Don took in her still murderous expression and switched the machine back into stage one. The ambient light projected on the surface seemed to calm her.

"Why was mine fuzzy?"

Everyone stared at Mikey. Don even jumped a little as his voice cut through the silence and Raph growled something low about stupid interruptions that nobody really caught.

"What?" Michelangelo said, fidgeting. He rubbed the back of his head and tightened the knot of his mask, a habit he'd picked up in childhood. "Donnie?"

His older brother always had the answer to such trivial puzzles, but this time Don just shook his head in response to Mikey's prompt.

"Distance."

Master Splinter, almost entirely forgotten in the drama of the moment, supplied this succinct answer.

"Trine remains confined in the Palace of the Oracle, many thousands of miles away, so its presence is abstract. Sol and Fina are present so their representation is sharp."

"And Medes?" April asked. "The purple outline was clear. Does that mean it's somewhere nearby?"

Donatello's eyes hardened at the name. He had been betrayed by that soul. Except of course, it wasn't Medes at all but the mimic wearing its likeness. Still, he wasn't inclined toward liking that particular soul right now.

"I suppose it must be in the city to be so focused," Don said, keeping his voice deliberately dispassionate.

Logically he knew the soul was no more responsible for Luna's near death than he was. The mimic stole both their forms to invade the lair. But he hadn't yet forgiven himself for the role he played, so he was having a hard time seeing the soul as innocent either.

Don felt eyes on him and looked up. Mikey stared at him intently from across the room, his face serious. Mikey rarely got that look in his eyes and ,when he did, it made Don wary. The others didn't notice.

"We must locate Medes and extract it from Charon's hold," Leo said, walking over to Luna and taking her hand. "The darkness that's tainting her is obviously coming through its connection. Charon is probably doing something unfortunate."

Leo didn't want to distress Luna further by speculating on what the unfortunate thing might be. Raph grunted in angry agreement.

"Tomorrow we will plan," Splinter said, "when we are all thinking clearly. Tonight, Hades and I will secure our home. All of you need rest if you are to attempt a raid on the demon's stronghold. I suggest you all retire now to prepare."

At that barely disguised order, his sons and daughter filed out and headed to their respective rooms. Though Raphael and Leonardo paused to see Luna safely to her door before taking to their own. Don closed his door quickly, looking distraught and Mikey eyed it as he retreated to his own room.

Don was reluctant to go after Medes, Mikey realized. Not because he didn't want to save Luna, for Don obviously loved her. And not because he didn't want to be bonded, but it was clear that he felt betrayed by the little soul who had never even set foot into their home.

Something had to be done.

"Initiating shutdown sequence..."

A smooth female voice echoed from all sides of the room as hidden speakers throughout the warehouse announced a mechanical acknowledgment to the commands being entered into the main terminal.

"Shutting down."

A shadowy figure typed for a few more seconds, his large green fingers flying over the keyboard with practiced ease despite the lack of light in the space. If his brothers could see him now, their jaws would collectively drop.

"Shutdown sequence complete. Opening containment unit."

He paused and checked his six as a small skittering noise reached his ears. A rat scurried out from the pile of boxes behind him and stood on hind legs to observe this intruder. The turtle noted its location and turned back to the complex lab set up before him, feeling slightly guilty. His father probably wondered where he was. He shook his head and pushed the thought aside to concentrate on the task at hand.

Finding the secret lab buried in the abandoned warehouse had been easy, once he 'borrowed' the sensor that detected other planer energy from Donatello's prototype trap. Patching it into his phone to use as a tracking device took longer than he thought but he still got it done before the evening was out.

Now, if he could just finish this and get back to the lair, Donnie would never know he took it.

He hurried over to another section of equipment and peered into a glass-like cylinder emitting a faint purple glow. With a snap and a faint hiss the container withdrew into the machine below, leaving the small tear-drop shaped form floating alone in midair.

For one second it flared a deep violet, before it sank to the surface of the table becoming pale and motionless. Alarmed, the turtle leaned closer. Dull and lifeless, it hardly emitted any light at all, unlike all the other parts of Luna's soul.

This put a kink in his plans. Escape was vital at this stage, leaving no time to hang around. He reached out a hand to assist, then drew back. Should he touch it? What if it bonded to him? He wanted one of his own, of course, but not this one.

"Medes?" Michelangelo whispered instead "Can you move?"

No response.

Mikey sighed. He wished he knew how his brothers convinced Sol and Fina to come back to the lair with them. Deep in thought, his eyes flitted over the other equipment on the table and caught on a small crystal looking sphere.

He remembered Donnie telling him about those. One had trapped Fina and another held Luna's silver essence for a short time. But forcing Medes to come with him sounded like a bad idea. The other souls were quite capable of defending themselves and he didn't want to explain to Leonardo why he needed help healing from plasma burns.

Another noise startled him into raising his head for a stealthy look around. He tensed as a pigeon fluttered near the ceiling, landing on a steel beam high above him. This warehouse was a maze of boxes with the lab in the center, so Mikey felt confident he would hear anyone entering long before they got to a point where they might locate him, but that didn't stop him from jumping at every little sound. Infiltrating an immortal stronghold alone was a tricky business.

He made a fist around the softly glowing stone hanging from his neck and relaxed again. At least he had an 'out' if Charon did discover him here. April had loaned him her amulet in case of emergency, but he hoped not to use it.

Wait, maybe the necklace could help now! Medes might recognize Sol's essence and trust him. It was worth a try. He turned back, took the amulet off, and dangled the stone by the cord.

"Medes, I only want to help," Mikey said. He gingerly extended his hand towards the little soul. "Luna is my sister and she can't get well without you. The other pieces trust me... See? Sol gave me this to protect our family."

Each time the pendant swung near Medes, it brightened for a moment, so Mikey set it as close to the purple flame as he could without touching it. His eyes widened as a tendril of blue energy emerged from the stone and sought the edge of Medes small form. The flame changed from lavender to violet as it sucked up the power and the blue faded around the stone until it once again resembled a plain river rock.

help.

The telepathic request was so weak and forlorn it was almost non-existent, but the thought reverberated through Mikey's mind like thunder. Realization hit him hard. Medes wasn't ignoring him, it simply lacked the strength to move.

Panic flooded Michelangelo's stomach, and he hopped from foot to foot as his anxiety sought a physical outlet. He expected to find Medes trapped, not near death. No wonder Luna wasn't recovering! There was nothing in his plan for this eventuality.

"How can I help?" he asked.

more.

The plea accompanied a horrible sense of thirst and Mikey panted a moment before he understood the sensation belonged to Medes. Drained and tortured the little soul required energy now or it was going to expire.

Mikey laughed at the irony. Luna was always telling him he was full of power but he hadn't been unlocked yet. How was he supposed to share something he didn't have any control over?

Medes flashed once, resigned. No more energy was forthcoming so it settled back on the machine to await its fate. Anger bubbled up inside Michelangelo. This little one was an important piece of Luna and he was not going to stand by while it disappeared.

He thought hard. Digging through the past for a solution. A foggy memory of Splinter first teaching them about chi, their lifeforce, bloomed behind his eyes. Their father said they could use their chi to shift energy from one plane to another without losing their own, and...

Mikey struggled to remember the rest of that long ago lesson. Something about focus, balance, searching, finding, breathing, and giving.

Eyes tightly shut in concentration, he didn't realize anything significant happened until a quiet chime sounded. A noise so filled with disbelief and gratitude that Mikey opened his eyes, startled, to find the cause. Medes hovered in the air before him, glowing softly, and almost purring, as it lapped up the energy flowing in a gentle stream from his outstretched arm.

He glanced down, surprised at the stance he'd instinctively chosen. His hand extended in front of him, palm open, facing the injured soul. He held a pose of perfect balance. Both feet solidly grounded in the earth beneath him, as a swell of power rose from somewhere below. Energy entered his legs, traveled the length of his body, and exited his hand in a growing wave. Medes latched on to it, starved.

On closer examination, Mikey discovered his arm was coated in a pale orange glow, though the power emanating from his hand was pure white. He wondered about the difference but ran out of time to consider as an alarm sounded.

Blaring a deafening, growling tone, the noise brought armed guards pouring in through the doors at a frightening rate. Mikey lost his focus, dropped his arm, and the energy faded away. Medes sank back, a little stronger, but not yet strong enough to flee.

They say desperation is the mother of invention, and at that moment, Mikey was desperate enough to invent a whole science fair full of projects on his own. All he really needed though was one particular flash of genius. It came without warning, and he found himself reacting before he had a chance to think at all.

His hand shot out and grabbed the crystal sphere from the table. He wrenched it open, dashed one half to the floor, and scooped Medes up in the remaining bowl. He snatched the amulet from the machine and bolted into the maze of boxes just as the guards reached the lab.

"STOP!"

"Over there!"

"What IS that?"

The cacophony of exclamations fell behind as Mikey pushed himself even faster. He charged up a set of metal stairs to a catwalk and sprang into a series of flips in an attempt to dodge the gunfire of the humans below. A bullet grazed his leg and heat shot through his system. He ignored it, continuing across the linked catwalks in a fluid combination of moves.

Right in front of them, a window beckoned with the promise of freedom and Mikey rushed toward it at top speed. But black smoke began to curl up from the beneath the catwalk before the exit, pouring through the perforated flooring and forming a dark wall.

It was going to take more than smoke to derail Michelangelo. He plunged into the edge of the fog, holding his breath, only to fall back screaming as his skin burned everywhere it touched. He staggered back and fell, landing roughly on his shell, but still somehow managing to keep his grip on the bowl holding the precious soul.

A large man in a black shadowed cloak stepped out of the smoke and walked toward where Mikey lay with a slow cocky saunter. His eyes blazed red and a smirk twisted his lips into an ugly grimace.

"What do we have here?" the man said. "I do believe it's one of Luna's new 'family', wouldn't you say?"

The man turned back to the smoke as a woman in a white grecian gown followed him out of the blackness. Her eyes slid to the bowl Mikey was holding and fastened with greed on the little purple flame.

"It's located another one of her souls," the woman said. "I wonder if it knows those things destroyed its adoptive father?"

She batted her lashes at Mikey with an evil smile waiting to see how he took the news. When no response was forthcoming, she clarified. "I do miss that old rat. He was so good at keeping the pages in line."

"And the soul he's holding now?" the man couldn't resist taunting, "That one betrayed the goddess and let the mimic in to kill his brother."

Mikey eyed them warily from the floor, considering. These two must be Charon and Serra. Nice to know they still didn't have a clue as to the real state of his family. Despite the agony of his burning skin, he rolled swiftly to his feet and held the bowl up in front of him.

"Stay back," Mikey said, raising an arm threateningly and making a complicated, swirling little gesture with his hand, "or I'll use my power to send it back where it belongs!"

Charon threw back his head and laughed, long and loud.

"You. are. powerless."

Mikey grimaced as Charon called his bluff, but then thought again. If Charon hit the amulet hard enough, Sol's protection would transport them back to the lair. Or at least he hoped it would. Since Medes had drained the stone, he wasn't sure it still worked, but it was probably their best chance at escape.

With that in mind, Mikey dropped the stone in the bowl with Medes and fell back on his tried and true methods of baiting an opponent. Years of practice made him a master at pushing people's buttons. All the time he spent teasing his brothers finally paid off.

"You're right, dude, but I don't need powers to kick your scrawny butt!" Mikey said.

He jumped to the railing of the catwalk and proceeded to bounce around like a children's toy, despite his injuries, throwing shadow punches and making derogatory noises.

Charon's eyes flared.

"Oh! I'm so scared. Big, old, mean man has glow-y eyes," Mikey said, while sticking out his tongue and moving even faster than before.

Charon fired off a few bolts of power which missed by a mile.

"You're gonna have to do better than that, old timer!"

Finally the bolts got strong enough Mikey thought they would suffice. During the next Mikey didn't move. The bolt hit the bowl, the soul, and the amulet. All three disappeared, leaving Mikey standing on the catwalk facing the two ancient creatures empty handed.

"uh-oh."