Jack ran over to Antonello as he collapsed, coughing on the floor, the fog from his cell, rising to the ceiling and dissipating into the air. "Ant!" She grabbed his arm, and helped him up. "Are you okay?" She winced, the action straining herself.
He nodded, still coughing.
Looking up the woman realized that it was only his cell that had opened up. "No..." She breathed. "No no no!" She ran over to where Leo was being held and tried to peer into the cell. It was so full of thick fog she couldn't see anything. "Leo!" She cried. "Leo hang on!" She yelled before running and half tripping over Ant to get to the computer console again. Her side was aching but she tried to ignore it.
Staring down at the keypads she froze. The numbers looked like hieroglyphs to her, it wasn't making sense. She closed her eyes and took a breath. The pattern, that was all she had to remember. It clicked and her hand moved in one of the patterns her brother had forced her to memorize. The cell clicked and the doors opened.
Jack rushed over and waited for the fog to dissipate and roll away before she stepped in. "Leo?" She asked.
But the more of the fog that faded away, the more of the cell was revealed, and the more she realized Leo wasn't there.
"Leo?" She took a step further inside and her foot hit something. Kneeling down Jack picked up the belt that Leo constantly wore to hold his katana. "What?" Her gaze shifted down when she saw something moving. There on the floor between her knees was a small turtle slowly walking towards her. Bright blue eyes stared up at her as he nudged at the belt in his way. "Oh my god… Leo?" Jack pulled her hand away from her bleeding side and picked him up before she rose to her feet with him in her hands.
"Jack!" Ant was calling for her. "How's Leo?"
"W-we… we have a problem." She stepped out to find Ant on his feet, looking around, and trying to secure the nearest door.
"Problem?" He turned around and froze. "Oh… shit." He looked down at the little un-mutated version of Leo that was sitting in Jack's hands. He looked up at her. "Can you… can you fix this? Can you make him normal again?" He asked in a hurry.
Jack's mouth fell open. "I-I don't know. I just know some codes I don't really know what they do!"
"Well you have to do something! We can't leave him like this!"
Jack looked back at the computer. "You watch the doors. I'll see what I can do."
The turtle nodded and found a makeshift weapon as Jack went back to Leo's cell. The woman set him down on the floor and frowned. "Stay here." She said. "Hopefully I can get this to work and you will be back to normal."
He took a few tiny steps after her as she turned and walked out to go back to the computer. Standing at the counter, Jacquelyn stared at the controls and the buttons for a few long minutes. She tried to remember the other patterns her brother had taught her. Her hand hovered over the keys and moved slightly before she finally depressed a few keys in a series of patterns. The doors on Leo's cell closed half way and then a red light on the computer flashed.
"What…?" Jack asked herself. "I don't…" She typed in the pattern again. And again the doors tried to close but stopped as the light on the console flashed. Her hand clutched her side as she felt her resolve starting to crumble with the pain. "I don't understand."
"Jack you need to hurry!" Ant called to her. "We need to get out of here before people start showing up!"
She looked back at the turtle who was peering down the hallway and down the stairwell. "Ant, come here!" When he reached her side she repeated the pattern. "When I tell you to, do that."
"Those numbers?"
"Sure, yes, whatever buttons I just pressed, in that order…. Just press them when I tell you to. Okay?"
"Okay."
Jack went into Leo's cell. The small turtle was slowly crawling along the floor and met her at the back wall where she found the wires he had ripped out. Her bloody hands found the wires and started to piece them back together. She carefully twisted what she hoped would be corresponding wires to one another to connect the proper circuits.
"Try it now!" She called to Ant.
A few seconds later the doors to the cell slammed shut and the vent above her hummed to life, pumping fog back into the cell.
She rushed to the door and started to beat on it while Ant beat on the other side. Fear filled the teenager's eyes as he looked through the clear wall at her. He had trapped her in there. Jack smiled softly at him and shook her head. It was no use. She simply sank down to a seat and looked at her side. Her shirt was thoroughly soaked through with blood now, her hands slick with the fluid. The leader of their little family slowly made his way to her and she held her hand out to him. Scooping him into her palms she lifted him to eye level. "I guess we will just have to see what this does to me. Hopefully it fixes you though. The world needs you more than me." She started to cough and lowered the little turtle to her lap. "I was never mad at you, you know. I know you were always just doing what you thought was best for the family… Raph gets that too. He's just too stubborn to admit it." Her eyes were getting heavy, she couldn't see very well. So Jack just let her eyes close and let the darkness consume her.
Usagi was pacing in the kitchen. He had already picked up and cleaned what he could of the mess in the home but there wasn't much left for him to do. The brothers were still in Donatello's room trying to fix him. There had been a scream not too long ago, followed by the sound of someone puking. The rabbit knew it wasn't good but they had asked him to step out so he obeyed without question.
Finally Michelangelo came out to the kitchen and got himself a drink of water. His hands were shaking as he put the glass to his mouth and took a drink.
"Michelangelo? Is everything alright? How is Donatello?"
Mikey stared down at the glass. "I don't know. We aren't doctors Usagi… Donnie was the only one ever good at this kind of thing… the bone is shattered like glass there are just pieces everywhere, I think there are even some missing? I…"
"Hello?" A soft voice out in the sewer surprised the pair and they instantly went silent. "Hello? Is anyone down here?" The feminine voice called again. There was a clatter and a startled cry. "Oh damn it… I knew I shouldn't have come down here by myself. I'll never find anything. I should have just gone home."
Mikey looked at Usagi and then inched his way towards the front door silently. It was still barely hanging there, it was more like a crumpled hole in the wall to any passerby, if those were common in the sewer. Peeking out, Mikey spotted the curly red head from the café that Jack worked at.
"It's you." He said suddenly.
Arionna jumped and looked over at Mikey, hand on her racing heart. She smiled nervously. "Heh, yeah… I um… I was worried about you guys. I thought I'd come see if there was anything I could do to help."
The turtle motioned her inside. Once she had crawled over the rubble, she took a moment to look around at the disastrous state of the living area.
"How'd you know something had happened?" Mikey asked, breaking her from her staring.
She looked up at him, her curls bouncing around her face. "Oh, I almost ran over Jack… She was in such a hurry to get to Raph I think she was so adamant on getting to him and helping him. But she said I wouldn't be able to help with that… Jack said Donnie was hurt…" She tucked a curl behind her ear. "Don't take this the wrong way… But um, my father is a veterinarian. I thought that, if someone was hurt since you guys can't get to the hospital, I might be able to help. I've helped my fair share of animals in the past."
"None taken… We could actually use the help." Mikey rubbed his head and led her over to Donatello's room. "It's pretty bad." He paused. "Wait… Raph is here… Where exactly was Jack going?"
Before Arionna could answer there was another scream and the door to Donnie's room flew open. Raphael was standing there. "Mikey! Get-" He stopped. "Who the hell are you? Wait… You are that girl… from the café…" He shook his head. "Never mind. Mikey, get in here."
Arionna followed the turtles into the room and instantly gasped. The sight before her looked like something straight out of a horror movie. Donatello was splayed out on a table, barely breathing. Blood was covering the table and floor as well as Raphael's arms, and numerous towels and bandages that had just been thrown about.
"Stop. Just… Stop." The words came out of her mouth before she could stop them.
"What did you say?" Raphael almost snapped.
"I don't care what you are doing, just don't touch him anymore, let me fix whatever mess is going on." Arionna pushed the sleeves of her shirt up to her elbows and walked around to the head of the table. Donatello was barely conscious. She swallowed hard. That was not at all how she had wanted to talk to him again. But situations deemed otherwise.
"Donnie… Donnie, look at me. Where do you have the anesthetic?"
"The what?" Mikey asked as Donnie simply pointed to a shelf.
Arionna went to the shelf and rummaged through a few bottles of pills. She found what she was looking for and handed it to Michelangelo. "Crush up two pills and mix it with water. Let me know when you have done that."
The turtle obeyed without question while the human turned to examine his leg. She frowned and felt her heart sink. She had seen this kind of injury before. It wasn't going to end well. Suddenly a hand grabbed her wrist. She jumped and looked up at Donnie's face.
"I know." He mumbled. "Just… make it quick."
"I have the pills…" Mikey brought over a tiny dish of murky liquid, the crushed pills in water.
Arionna took the dish and set it on the table. "I need a syringe."
Raphael opened a drawer and pulled out a clean one and offered it to her. "What are you doing?"
"I'm knocking him out." She filled the needle with the sedative and evacuated any air bubbled before stepping up to Donnie's arm. "He doesn't need to be awake for this." After injecting him with the liquid Arionna looked up at Raphael. "I'm going to need your help. This isn't going to be pleasant or easy…"
"What do you need me to do?" Raphael asked.
Arionna was taking off her belt and slipping it around Donatello's leg. She pulled it tight around his calf, just below his knee on the muscle that was still intact. "We need to amputate his leg."
Once it was all over, Raphael hoisted Donatello, now one limb short, up and carried him across the room to his actual bed. Arionna was helping Mikey clean up what was left of the mess around the table where they had operated on the other turtle.
"Why do you work at a café? Shouldn't you be working in a hospital or something if you can do this stuff?" Mikey asked her.
"I'm in college. The café is just a part time job. Hopefully I'll be off to medical school once I graduate but…" She shrugged. "I'm not sure I could handle doing this every day." Frowning she looked at Donatello.
Crossing the room she took a seat at the edge of the bed to keep an eye on her… patient. "I'll stay here and watch him."
"Thank you." Raph looked down at her. "I… if you weren't here…"
She held up a hand. "Don't worry. Now you need to go get Jack before she gets herself killed."
Raphael's face paled. In all the commotion with his brother, all the fear, he hadn't realized how long Jack had been missing, how long he had been postponed from going after her. "Damn it… where is she? Do you know where she went?!"
Arionna hung her head. "She was heading for the Xanus building when I almost ran her over. She insisted on going she was looking for all of you."
Raph grit his teeth and turned around. Storming out of the room and into the kitchen, he found Usagi and his younger brother talking about what they had just done to Donatello. "Mike, Usagi, we are leaving."
The rabbit grabbed the sai from his belt and laid them on the table. Beautiful new shiny sai with red leather handles. He offered them to Raphael. "They are from Miss Jacquelyn. A birthday present for you."
He took the weapons and flipped them around his hands before shoving them in his belt and removing the old ones. "Let's go. We still need to find her, Leo and Ant."