Mikey looked at out of the tube into the laboratory. They were captured- again, but the circumstances were far worse than the last time. The youngest turtle bit back a growl as the reason they captured walked in the room, but then frowned. Something was wrong with her eyes. They seemed to flash between a hardness to confusion to fear and back.
Finally, a small group of foot soldiers, led by Karai, walked into the room.
"It took you long enough." Erin snarled at the other woman. Karai bristled at her tone, her hand going to her wakizashi. Erin ignored the move and waved her hand to the captive turtles. "You and your men bring the beasts into to dojo. I'll be waiting for them there." The red head moved to storm out of the room when another look of confusion crossed her face, and she stopped.
"Erin-Taicho, is everything okay?" A nearby soldier asked, concern on his unmasked face. The foot captain shook her head, as if to clear it, and turned to the soldier. "Yes, thank you for asking. I was just deciding what one to fight first." She looked them over, her eyes settling on the leader who was just recovering from his hangover.
"I'll take him first, shackle the rest to the side wall." She commanded them group, then swept from the room.
The turtles were shackled together, and taken down a few floors into an open room, with a set of shackles hanging from a wall on one end. Erin stood in the center, stretching out. Even with his current burning hatred for her, Leo had to admire the lithe, almost feline way her body moved. She straightened up when they came into the room, and pointed to the place in front of her.
"Put the drunk here, the others go to the wall." Erin commanded, and the soldiers moved to follow her orders, Karai pulling Leonardo up to where Erin had pointed.
"Will you be okay on your own, or will you end up fucking the red one?" Karai said darkly, handing April the key to Leo's handcuffs. Erin smirked at the other kunoichi, her eyes gleaming.
"Jealous that one actually wanted me without force?" Erin asked. "I know you cry this one's name while you pet your kitty." She finished, jerking her head to the blue brother, who turned bright red. Karai turned the same color and growled, but said nothing as she turned and left the room. Then Michelangelo's voice filled the room.
"She has a cat?" The youngest turtle asked, genuine interest in his eyes, despite the situation. Amusement flashed in Erin's eyes momentarily, before she turned back to Leo, and unlocked his cuffs, then stepped back to her spot.
Donatello watched as Erin picked up Leo's kantanas and handed them to him. The blue turtle took them and put them on his back.
"Go easy on her Leo." Don cautioned as Erin warmed up.
"Why" The leader snapped, every inch of his body tense.
"Because she's losing it!" The younger turtle exclaimed as his older brother began to walk away. Leo paused and looked over his shoulder, his eyes cold.
"And why should I care?" He snarled, and continued to move towards Erin.
"Because underneath it all, April is still there, and I don't want your last memory of her being April and asking why you hurt her" Donatello finished to his brother's retreating back.
"What do ya mean?" Donatello turned to Raph, who had spoken for the first time since their capture, and swallowed hard.
"The Nanites that they gave her to replace her memories are starting to turn on her. The April we know is still there and is starting to resurface, but Erin is still fighting it. Eventually the stress of the two personalities fighting to gain dominance in her head will cause a massive breakdown. Ether she'll attack someone in a fit of madness and they'll have to kill her, or she'll commit suicide. That is if they don't have the backup plan that if she gains her memories back, the nanites flat kill her." The purple turtle stated, and he heard his older brother sharply draw in a breath. They all turned their focus to Leo, who stood in front of Erin, his blue eyes dark with hatred for her.
Leo glared at the woman before him, as she gave him a low bow before the fight. He bared his teeth at her, refusing to return it, even though it was a proper one for the situation. He unsheathed his kantanas and moved into an offensive position.
"I'm going to kill you for betraying my family, you bitch." Leo growled low, the blades of his weapons gleaming low light. Erin looked confused for a moment, like she didn't know where she was, but focused back on Leo with a cold smile.
"You're the one who's going to die, monster." She returned coolly, playing with the scythe of her weapon. Leonardo snarled in return,
Leo, full of rage, charged forward in an attempt to shoulder tackle the kunoichi that stood before him, in an attempt to slam into her hard enough to stun her and then eliminate this. . . traitor, with a following blow. That was his first mistake. His second mistake was attacking in anger, which was something that Splinter had been keen in teaching his students/children NOT to do. "Rage is only a weapon unto one self. A blade drawn in anger is as good as dull, rusted one." The wise, old rat would say to them.
Erin saw the shoulder tackle coming from the uncharacteristically brutish and rageful dual katana wielding turtle. She quickly side stepped to the right and answered his attempt with a right cross to the face, and a left hook to the body. This only seemed to serve to further anger the turtle in blue, as he quickly answered with a left elbow smash, and followed it up with a right cross of his own, which sent the woman spinning through the air. As she was about to land, Leo came with a downward slash, which the female shinobi managed to block mid-spin with the kusarigama out of reflex. Leo attempted to stab Erin where she lay, but she quickly rolled left, barely dodging the lethal blow. As she rolled out of the way, she threw ball of her chain to the blue turtle's face, catching him where his nose would be, and causing him to shuffle back a bit- enough to give her time to make space between her and her adversary.
Erin rolled back onto her feet and readied her weapon, ready to take advantage of her foe as he was stunned. As she dashed forward, she saw something out of the corner of her eye: another woman reaching out, as if trying to plead with her to stop. Though she heard no sound from the pleading woman, she would quickly deal with this uninvited guest by throwing the chain ball at her throat . . . only to hit, and shatter a nearby training dummy that sat on the edge of the room. Confused, Erin paused to wonder what she had just seen, but had to duck quickly, as her foe had come to.
"I'm right here, bitch!" Leo had yelled after trying to decapitate the recently distracted Erin. She dodged the strike, but left herself open to a side thrust kick that sent her tumbling back and onto the area she had just been looking at. "If you want to stand there and get distracted while fighting me, that's okay. I would normally have an issue cutting down a distracted rival, but I'll make an exception for you." Leo said, as he began to stalk towards her, like a predator closing in for the kill. Erin chuckled, and grinned at Leo.
"My, my, lookit the balls on Yoshi's bitch." She said as she was slowly starting to stand up. This, of course, threw Leo a bit off. "Did you suck on the rat's dick long enough to grow your own? I mean, from what I know about you, that old codger couldn't even whip out his cock out to piss without you being there to hold it for him." Leo's eyes began to twitch as he heard the kunoichi's words.
"W-what did you just fucking say?!"
"What? Did you suddenly become deaf? Here, let me spell it out for you big blue bitch: You. Rode. Hamato Yoshi's. Diiiiick." Erin said as she was mockingly making sign language gestures towards Leo.
"Damn. That was pretty low." Mikey said to himself.
"Ya' don't say. . ." Replied Raph. Leo screamed in rage, and lunged forward at Erin, attempting to skewer her, but his target had long stepped aside.
"What's the matter, 'Alpha'? Did you think you were 'man' enough to hang?" Leo threw a blind back slash in the direction of mocking woman's voice. He started to look around for her, not trusting his senses, but Erin had moved in behind.
"Leo! Look out!" All three brothers said in near unison.
The elder turtle quickly threw a back kick, but it was quickly parried by the femme fatale. He tried to use the momentum of the parry to do another left backhand slash, but she had deftly wrapped her chain around his arm. Leo cried out in pain as she dug the blade into his arm and cut a deep gash from his elbow to near his wrist.
Pulling out the blade, she went to move behind him when she suddenly cried out in pain and clutched her head. Stumbling backwards, she collapsed onto her hands and knees, breathing heavily. Leo tried to get to his feet, clinging to his injured arm, as Erin looked up.
The darkness was gone, replaced by fear and confusion. She looked around franticly, like she didn't know where she was. Finally her eyes settled on Leo and they lit up. She scrambled to her feet and bolted towards him, and before he could stop her, her arms wrapped around him in a tight hug.
"I knew you guys would come for me!" She exclaimed, releasing him enough to pull back and look at him. "They kept telling me you abandoned me, but I knew you wouldn't, I knew you'd-" She stopped and looked down at his arm and her blue eyes went wide. "Oh, god, what happened to your arm?" She moved away from him to look at his arm. Biting her lip, the woman looked back up at him.
"April?" Leo managed to say, his blue eyes on hers. "When did we defeat Sachs?" April looked up from examining his wound and frowned.
"Two years ago, why?" She asked, as her hands moved down and grabbed the shirt of her uniform. Leo's felt sick as confusion came to her face and she looked down at the uniform she had on. Her bright eyes met his. "Leo, why am I wearing this?" She asked, her hands starting to shake. Looking around, she saw the bloodied weapon she had dropped and her eyes moved back to his wound. "I did this to you, didn't I?" She asked, her voice barely audible.
"April, it's okay, it's not your fault..." Leo began, but she cut him off.
"You were right." She muttered, almost to herself. "I am a danger to you." Her entire body was trembling by that time, and she noticed the others against the wall, in chains. Horror registered across her face. "I got you all captured." She began to hyperventilate, shutting hey eyes and burying her head in her hands. "No, please no, let this be a bad dream, a nightmare, don't let this be real…" Suddenly she cried out in pain and collapsed to the floor. Leo stood and moved back towards his brothers, unsure if Erin would be the one facing him again when the episode ended.
After what seemed like an eternity, she opened her eyes again and looked around, her sight set on Leo. She looked over at him and behind at his brother, frowning. Moving slowly, the woman reached for his weapon and grabbed it. Sliding into a defensive position, she finally spoke.
"Do I know you?" Her voice echoed in the empty lab, and they all froze. It was Raph that found his voice first.
"Yah, ya know us." He told her, his voice soft. "We're your family. You are very important to us." Her eyes met his and she studied them for a few seconds. Then she gave a curt nod and walked up to the three chained turtles, studying the shackles. Pulling two long pieces of metal from her boot, she unlocked them, finishing with Raph. The biggest turtle rubbed his wrists, looking down at the woman who was studying him intently.
"You- You're something different than the rest of them to me, aren't you?" She asked softly. He met her eyes, and he nodded. Her eyes went sad and she covered one of his large hands with hers. "I'm sorry I don't remember." She whispered. "I can feel that you are very dear to me, but I can't even remember your name."
"We-" Raph began, but the doors opened and a foot soldier walked into the room.
"Erin-Taicho, I apologize for the interruption, but Master Shredder has asked me-" The soldier froze when he caught sight of the loose turtles. He turned to run out of the room, but stopped as the blade of April's weapon dug into his back. The turtles turned to her, stunned. Her face was pale, but her eyes with a dark hatred.
"He hurt me." She whispered. "He deserves it. They all do." She moved up to the man who withered in pain on the floor and pulled the blade from him. Pressing the weapon to his throat, she moved it quickly across to flesh, blood spurting from cut. She stepped away from him, and moved to the door as the man twitched a few times before finally going still. "Grab your weapons and let's move." She commanded to the horrified turtles.
"Don?" Raphael asked, his voice low so April couldn't hear as she left the room. "Does this mean that April, my April, our April, is gone?" The purple turtle leaned down to gather his Bo as they heard shouts from the two guards outside the door, then looked up to see blood trickling into the room.
"I'm sorry Raph." He answered softly, and felt his heart twist as his older brother's face fell. "But I believe the April we know and love is truly gone."
So yah, an update. I have learned two very important lessons in these past few months
1) Going back to school after ten years sucks. All the algebra I learned in high school? Never used it.
2) If you are like me and are going back to school after some time: Night classes for your basic one (English, math) I had an evening math class, so it wasn't too bad, but my English was mostly kids fresh out of high school. One had no clue who ISIS is and they laughed at a picture of some cops during the Boston Marathon Bombing.