"This must be it."
Carrying the still-weak Tomoe Ame, Usagi stopped just before a set of large iron double doors braced by menacing patterns of brass. Leonardo stepped resolutely besides him. "Then let's go." His hand reached out for the door, but was suddenly grabbed by Tomoe.
"Leonardo-san," she said desperately. "Please, do not rush in without a sound plan. If Sorceress Akumu has been focused upon you enough to be able to reach you from your world, you cannot begin to imagine what she may be able to do if the two of you are in the same room."
"Tomoe Ame is right," Usagi threw in. "If she is strong enough to create an exact duplicate of Tomoe Ame just to have me pass along a parcel, then who knows what she is capable-"
"So what would you have me do?" Leonardo asked, hardly casting the pair a glance. "Would you rather have me waste precious time sitting up here and try to think up a way to climb in through an auxiliary entrance that may or may not be there? Would you rather I hide in a corner until I see my brother's walking corpse shambling out the door? Would you-"
His tirade was cut off when the double doors suddenly creaked. Looking at them with surprise, the group simultaneously stepped backwards as the doors opened towards them, revealing the dark room inside. "So much for the surprise approach," Raphael muttered. Before anyone could stop him, he lunged into the room, sais in hand.
Screeching to a halt, Raphael looked around him. It appeared as though he had suddenly stepped into a black hole. He heard footsteps behind him, but they sounded as though they were far off. Impossible, he thought. I didn't take more than five steps into the room.
"Raph?" A hand fell on his shoulder, causing Raphael to jump. Whirling around, he saw Michelangelo back away defensively. "Easy there, bro. Man, this is creepy." Not letting his guard down, Raphael watched as Michelangelo observed the void of the room. He had heard enough talk about illusions and the like to know that he needed to be wary. Just because the bonehead in front of him looked like Michelangelo didn't mean it was actually Michelangelo.
Raphael somehow managed to relax when he saw Leonardo, Usagi, and Tomoe emerge from the emptiness behind Michelangelo. "It is almost as though we have stepped into Oblivion itself," Usagi observed.
"Guys?"
The group quickly turned to the sound of the voice. Finding himself in front of the line, Raphael remained in attack mode even when the alarm came over him. "Casey? April? What the shell?"
Standing side-by-side a few feet in front of them were Casey Jones and April. They seemed lost and bewildered. Rubbing his head in confusion, Michelangelo remarked, "Something's not right here." He was about to step towards the pair when Raphael held him back.
"Don't even try it," he told Michelangelo. With a growl, Raphael ignored the warnings of his brothers and friends and sped towards Casey. He could see shock take over the man's face even as he held out his arms and attempted to keep Raphael back.
"Whoa, whoa," Casey exclaimed. "What's goin' on here, Raph?" His blue eyes suddenly bulged as his entire body clenched up. In shock, April called out his name, aghast.
"Nice try, you nightmare nutcase," Raphael remarked, backing away as April worriedly went to Casey's side. "But the last time I kneed Casey Jones in the groin, April couldn't stop laughin'. You're overestimatin' her nurturin' nature."
April looked up at him, and Raphael saw that the image of Casey seemed to begin to merge with hers. Backing away even more until he bumped into Michelangelo, Raphael nevertheless readied himself for battle when April's eyes turned bright red. When four large spider legs burst out of either side of her and Casey, however, Raphael grimaced and looked away. "Bugs," he mumbled. "Of course."
"How quick of you," the mound of flesh that once depicted the images of Raphael's two closest friends hissed out. "You would not even dare give me the chance to take root… not even at the risk of being wrong and injuring your actual friends."
"Injury?" Michelangelo cracked. "Ha! That's how he and Casey say 'hello' to one another." As Michelangelo spoke, a mist rose and was joined by a faintly queasy sound. It was clear that the hellish creature was changing its form under the cover of the fog. Regardless, Leonardo unsheathed his katanas and walked straight towards it.
The haze finally cleared, revealing a large gray spider as Akumu's true form. Even through her inherently evil face, Leonardo could see that she was surprised that he had dared to step so close to her as she was shape shifting. "We didn't come here to play games," he told her levelly. "All I want is my brother. Tell me where he is, or I'll have to bleed that information out of you."
A rustling, chilling sound came from the spider being, and Leonardo soon discovered that this was her idea of laughter. "Ah, the great and powerful kame Leonardo. At long last we meet face to face. As for the whereabouts of your brother, you can find young Donatello-san right over there." At this, she lifted one of her front legs, pointing behind Leonardo. "And I trust you will find that he has some business with you."
Leonardo did not appreciate the coy sound of Akumu's voice, nor did he trust her enough to look away from her. Though he didn't want to admit it to himself, he was glad to see Raphael and Michelangelo step in besides him, ready to defend him should she make a move while his back was turned.
Slowly, Leonardo turned to follow the direction of the point. There, an incalculable distance away in the inky blackness, he could see Donatello sitting on the ground, looking towards him dispassionately. The gaze chilled him, and he almost felt a wave of nausea coming over him when he saw that Donatello appeared battered and looked as though his bones were protruding from his flesh, as his night terrors had prophesized. Turning fully towards his brother, he soon saw that the white substance wasn't his bones; instead, he seemed to be draped with something white and ghostly. Breathing hard, he realized that Donatello had a light adornment of spider webs spread across his broad shoulders.
Without a word, Leonardo ran off in Donatello's direction. He hardly managed to avoid a flying kick from another neko ninja. Looking about, he saw that there were scores of ninjas crouched in the darkness, preparing to pounce. He was about to get rid of the one who had moved towards him when one of Michelangelo's nunchucks did the job for him. "Go get Donnie," Michelangelo called to him. "We'll deal with the welcome wagon." Though something about this bothered Leonardo, he didn't voice any concerns as he continued on his way to his captive brother.
Struggling against Usagi's arms, Tomoe attempted to stand on her own two feet. "Usagi, put me down. We need to fight." Quickly dodging two ninjas who came at him at the same time, Usagi disagreed. "You are in no condition for such a battle," he told her. "I will do what I can to find someplace to hide you in safety, and will protect you in the mean time." Though she continued to resist, Usagi did not stray from this goal.
As Michelangelo dealt with the neko ninjas, Raphael set his sights on the endgame. With a glare at Akumu, Raphael grit his teeth and dove for her. He only just managed to stop himself and use his sais to defend himself against a gauzy substance suddenly spewing from the wretched spider. "It would be wise to watch your step," Akumu hissed as she backed away and Raphael sliced through the webbing. "When someone else is doing the weaving, you can never tell what the picture holds."
Annoyed by what he viewed as a cowardly retreat, Raphael plunged blindly ahead. "Ya wanna talk metaphors, lady? I'll give ya a metaphor." As he became aware that the ninjas had used a number of smoke screens, Raphael silently hoped that the smoke and cobwebs wouldn't disorient him. "Metaphorically speakin', I'm comin' this close to rammin' my sais right up your-"
He stopped in his tracks. The smoke suddenly cleared, and the residual webbing was gone from his weapons. Instead, he found himself in a familiar room, staring at a familiar creature. "You are too violent, my son," Splinter's hushed voice told him. "When approaching an enemy, it is best to remain as silent as possible and decide beforehand what your best routes of defense are."
Raphael could do little else but gawk at the figure in front of him, blinking. Splinter, a small voice inside his head called out. It's Master Splinter. This was the same voice that always attempted to convince Raphael to grieve. He usually drowned it out by lifting weights until he was too sore to realize that he had anything to grieve over.
That was when the reality seeped in. He did have something to mourn. And that something was Splinter. Splinter was dead, and had been for months. Splinter was caught in an explosion that burnt his body beyond recognition. Splinter was not standing right in front of him.
"Get outta here," he told the figure in the heart-wrenching guise. "Get outta here right now. Right this second." He didn't know if the words were meant for the artificial sensei or for himself, but that didn't matter to him. As much as he willed his mind to believe the truth, to believe that everything he was seeing and smelling and hearing was all simulated, his senses just wouldn't buy it. He knew that everything was fake… just as much as he knew everything was real.
"Raphael," the imitation-Splinter reprimanded. "Control yourself! What is causing this display of anger?" Raphael hadn't even realized that, in his frustration, he had fallen to his knees, snarling behind clenched teeth. This can't be happening. Not happening. I don't know how she did it, but she did. With a sense of dismay, Raphael became aware of the fact that he couldn't even grasp who "she" was.
"Raph, what's your problem?" Raphael looked up and saw that Leonardo had entered the room, glaring down at him disapprovingly. "Sensei asked you a question. What on earth are you doing rolling around on the floor?"
Before Raphael could respond, Splinter interceded. "Please, Leonardo, do not bear down on him. It is plain to see that your brother is deeply tormented by some inner turmoil. While he is on the ground, I propose he spend his time meditating on what ails him until he is ready to speak of it."
Yes, maybe that was what Raphael needed. Even as Leonardo looked down on him skeptically before leaving the room, Raphael took long, deep breaths as he lowered himself into a sitting position. Splinter seemed pleased that he wasn't going to argue about it or make any snide remarks. Why should he? Deep down inside, Raphael had always known that Splinter's advice was backed with years of wisdom and experience. All Raphael needed to do to solve that aching throb in the back of his head was sit back, close his eyes, clear his mind, and-
"You'd better give me a good Christmas present after this stunt, bro!" Raphael's eyes flew open as the high-pitched voice of his brother suddenly invaded the quiet of the room. Splinter was glaring behind him, and Raphael was about to gather his weapons to defend his teacher when he noticed something disturbing about the rat. Something about him seemed… ethereal. Otherworldly. And the fact that his eyes were glowing red didn't help matters, either.
A hand flailed on his shoulder, but try as he might, Raphael couldn't will himself to look back. No, it wasn't that he couldn't will himself. Something else was controlling his will. Never more desperate for Michelangelo to actually pull through, Raphael did all he could to free himself of whatever had him frozen in place.
Ultimately, Raphael didn't realize that he was a victim of his own mind until something seemed to be jerked away from his body. With a gasp, Raphael blinked several times, wondering momentarily if he had gone blind. Soon, his memories returned. He was not in their old lair. He was not meditating with Splinter. He was sitting in the dark chambers of an evil spider sorceress who had been tormenting his brother ever since their father died.
With a cry of both rage and anguish, Raphael jumped to his feet. Turning, he saw Michelangelo with a tight grip on his arm. His free hand had grabbed hold of one of Raphael's dropped sais and he apparently had used it to cut him free of the spider webs. Evidently, it was those webs that gave Akumu such control over a person's sense of reality.
Raphael remembered seeing Donatello draped in such webbing and looked behind them. Whatever wasn't as black as night was screened with mist, making it impossible to see anyone who wasn't standing as close as Michelangelo currently was. He could only hope that Leonardo would make the connection on his own and successfully free Donatello. In only that single minute in which he was bound, Raphael had thought that he would go insane.
As he remembered his tumultuous emotions when he gazed upon Splinter, Raphael couldn't help but shudder. Looking at Michelangelo, he raised his arm in a half-embrace. "Thanks, Mikey. I owe ya one."
Michelangelo was about to reply when Raphael's world went black.
"Whoa!" Michelangelo hardly managed to scream before ducking and rolling out of the way of a cascade of webbing. At a somewhat-safe distance, he glanced up and saw with horror what had happened. Akumu had come up behind Raphael and apparently injected her stinger in the back of his leg, while simultaneously attempting to ensnare Michelangelo in her web. As she withdrew her stinger, Raphael slumped to the floor, unconscious. "Raph!"
"How touching," she hissed as she edged away from the comatose turtle. "If he had only known what his fate would be otherwise, he would have begged for the comfort of illusion. But you know better, do you not, Michelangelo? You were always anxious to lose yourself in fiction, knowing it to be more worthy than the scourge of reality."
Tucking the sai into his belt, Michelangelo said nothing as he withdrew his nunchucks. Though he felt an unspeakable rage welling up inside of him as he desperately eyed Raphael, he couldn't bring himself to speak. He waited to see what Akumu would do, first. If he made a stupid move and got caught in her web or stabbed by her stinger, then Raphael was done for. He couldn't be sure whether or not Raphael was currently breathing, but he wasn't going to do anything that would-
With amazing speed, the spider was suddenly upon Michelangelo, knocking him to the ground. His weapons flew from his hands as he tried to push the creature away and stop her from bearing down on him. Gazing upwards, he could see the gnashing yellow fangs in her wide mouth and smell the repulsive stench of her breath. Some memory of a horror movie came back to him, reminding him of a monster that feasted on human souls.
Michelangelo knew that his strongpoint was his speed and agility, but there was no way that he could utilize those abilities with a gargantuan spider on top of him, waiting to do who-knows-what to him. Knowing that nothing would keep Leonardo from keeping Donatello safe, Michelangelo urgently yelled, "Usagi! Somebody, help!"
As though in response to his outcry, Akumu released a long, menacing laugh.