Chapter 2
Authors note: I don't own TMNT or any of its characters, all original characters are mine=)
Leonardo looked up from his reading and realized that the lair had been silent for quite awhile. "Hey Donny, has Raph made it back yet?" He asked.
Donatello lifted a his welding masked and glanced at Leonardo. "I haven't seen him."
Michelangelo walked into the living room and looked around. "He's probably blowing off some steam somewhere outside." He said as he walked over to the fridge, opened the door and began rummaging for food.
Leonardo looked over to where their vehicles were parked. All were in their place. "On foot?" Leonardo asked.
Both Michelangelo and Donatello shrugged.
"I'm going to go check on him, Mikey you're with me, Donny check the camera's and tell us what you see."
Leonardo turned to leave when Donatello's voice stopped him. "That's strange." He said as he brought up the camera footage. "It's like something has interfered with the camera's signal. All of the camera images are really grainy. I can make out a little bit but." He shook his head. "I'm going to rewind the recording and see if I can catch an earlier image. The cameras were all working fine when Raph went to check out the sensor trip."
Leonardo began feeling uneasy. "Finally, okay here is a section of the recording where the image...is...clear..." Donatello's voice stopped as he watched the image on the tape. "Raph." He choked on the name, turning his head from the screen, as if the image were to unbearable to see.
Leonardo leapt over the rail that led to Donatello's work area that was set up in the living room, and looked at the screen. Michelangelo put down his slice of uneaten pizza and walked over to the monitor. "What is it Donny?" Leonardo asked fear slipping down his spine. Donatello looked away from the screen as he rewound the image. He pressed play and let the gruesome image play out.
The image showed Raphael sneaking up behind a piece of crumbled wall. He was looking at something off screen. He walked out and began speaking to someone off screen. Then there was a shadow, something black and insubstantial streaking past him so fast the camera could barley catch the movement, and then blood sprayed from horrific wounds. Raphael slumped to the ground. Leonardo stopped the image. There lay his brother in a pool of his own blood. Cut down by something the camera could not even capture. All three brothers were silent. The image would be etched into their memories forever. "How long ago was this image taken" He asked in a steady voice.
"Five minutes ago." Dobnatello said in a strained voice.
"He could still be alive." Michelangelo said in a whisper. "You know Raph, he's too stubborn to die." He said with false cheer.
"You're right Mikey, he needs our help." Leonardo said gathering up the remains of his sanity and holding tightly to the thought. As long as he believed that Raphael was alive, he would be able to put one foot in front of the other and collect his brother, one way or the other.
The three brothers silently gathered up their weapons and headed to where their brother lay in a pool if his own blood.
They silently entered the chamber. Every instinct that Leonardo possessed urged him to rush in and get his brother, but he shoved those instincts away. The last thing he wanted was for him to lead his other brothers to their death. The chamber was silent, nothing stirred. Leonardo motioned for his brothers to take the left as he slowly moved to the right.
"Leo, over here!" Donatello yelled.
Leonardo took in Donatello's relaxed position and rushed over. As he reached them his eyes took in what it was his brothers had found. A giant carcass lay on the ground blood still oozed from its severed neck.
"It almost looks like a dragon." Donatello observed. He knelt down by its clawed blood soaked hands. "I think this is what got..." He didn't finish his sentence, he didn't need to.
"So if this thing got Raph, what got it?" Michelangelo asked. His eyes darted around.
"Let's find Raph." Leonardo said in a determined voice.
Donatello still knelt by the monster's body. "Hey Leo," He said looking at something on the floor. "Whatever you do, don't step in this things blood. I think it may be acidic. Where the blood has fallen it appears to have eaten right through."
Donatello stood and looked around. "There's its head." He said walking over to where the head lay.
"I don't care about that...monster, find Raph!" Leonardo screamed at his brother.
"Guys!" Michelangelo yelled.
Both brothers ran to where Mikey was standing on the other side of the severed head. Leo stopped dead at the sight before him. He took one step then fell to his knees. Raphael was leaning against a piece of fallen wall, head tilted slightly to the side. Leonardo would have thought he was just sleeping if not for the blood pooled on and around him.
"Raphael, you hot-headed...ARRRGGGGHHHH. Why Raph, why!" Leonardo screamed at him.
His body had been ripped from shoulder to thigh. Flesh and shell looked to have been torn to shreds. Donatello was the first to walk over to Raphael. He knelt down beside him and took his hand. Eyes closed he placed his forehead against Raphael's. A tear slipped down his face hitting Raphael's cheek. Donatello opened his eyes and watched the tear hit his brothers chest which rose then fell.
Donatello's eyes opened wide as he placed his fingers on his brother's neck searching for a pulse. His eyes flew to Leonardo. "Leo, he's alive!" He exclaimed.
The sick ball of despair that had threatened to overwhelm him lifted slightly. He was able to stand and stumble over to his brother's side, but how long would he last with injuries so grievous?
"How bad is he Donny?" Leonardo managed to choke out.
"I'm not a doctor Leo, but his pulse is strong." He began looking over his injuries. Donatello was silent for a moment then pulled back in confusion. "With this much blood..." He said to himself as he reached into his bag and pulled out his first aid kit.
He began cleaning a away the blood to reveal the injuries below. Donatello touched the scar tissue that was revealed by cleaning off the blood. "He's been healed." He said in shock.
"What do you mean healed?" Leonardo asked, hope flaring within him.
"I mean his injuries look to be months old instead of minutes. He is badly scarred, but completely healed." He said in amazement.
Leonardo reached out and touched his brother, then shook him lightly. Michelangelo looked at him worriedly.
"So, why isn't he awake, if he's okay?" Michelangelo, who had been strangely silent, said in a confused voice.
Donatello looked again at Raphael's face. "I don't know Mikey. It's possible that he's still recovering. Let's get him back to the lair."
Leonardo grabbed an arm while Donatello grabbed the other.
They walked a few steps past the monster's head when Mikey stopped and looked at it, seemingly deep in thought. Leonardo and Donatello both stopped and looked over their shoulders at him.
"What is it Mikey?" Leonardo asked.
"I was just thinking." He began. "So this thing takes Raph out right away, then something manages to take it out and heal Raph and leave before we get here?"
Donatello and Leonardo both looked at each other. The thought that there was something out there that could take out a monster that their brother didn't even see coming was a frightening thought. The idea that it could still be around was even more frightening.
"But whoever did it healed Raph, so that means they must be friendly?" Michelangelo asked what they were all wondering.
"I don't know Mikey, I really don't know." Leonardo said as he took one last look at the chamber, turned around and began walking back to the lair.
He and Leonardo deposited Raphael in his room, Leonardo had decided to take first watch. They had managed to clean him up and discovered that he really was fully healed, just unconscious. Michelangelo was getting some rest so he could take over for Leonardo when his watch was over, but Donatello had a feeling it would be impossible to pull Leo from Raphael's bedside. They had all suffered a shock today and although Raphael appeared to be fine, the thought that they had lost one of their brothers seemed to weigh heavily with everyone. A deep melancholy seemed to have set in. He believed it would only be lifted when Raphael regained consciousness.
Donatello walked over to his security monitors. Anger and betrayal rushed through him. They had failed him. He had almost sent his brother to his death because there had been nothing there. They had recorded nothing. Yet how do you miss a 30 foot monster? For that matter who was the mysterious person who had slain the beast and healed Raphael's wounds.
He wanted to break every single screen and scream at the technology that failed him. "So this is how Raph feels all the time." He muttered to himself. A slight smile curling on his lips. Instead he sat down in front of the monitors and went over every inch of recording. There had to be something.
A hand on his shoulder woke him up. Surprised he jumped up. "Raph?" Adrenalin pumped through his veins. Leonardo looked at him and shook his head sadly. Donatello sat down, disappointment monetarily crushing him.
"I'm surprised Mikey managed to get you to leave Raph's side." He commented as he turned his attention back to the screen.
"I had no intention of leaving, but Mikey drove me out with threats about singing a complete album of yodeling. Where he would get a whole album of yodeling I don't know, but I did not intend to stick around to find out."
"It's my fault Leo." Donatello said in a voice filled with regret. "What if he never wakes up?"
"It's not your fault Donny, it's mine. I encouraged him to go because he was getting on my nerves. I'll never forgive myself." He said in a whisper.
They were both silent for a moment. "Don't worry Donny, you know Raph, he's too stubborn to let something like this keep him down. He'll wake up."
Donatello nodded. "I wanted to show you something. I managed to clean up some of the images that had gone grainy. I slowed down the time and found this." He showed Leonardo the images he had managed to pull from the recordings. "In each of these images you could make out faint shadows, a blur here, a blur there. I figured out this blur here is the monster, over here is a much smaller blur. I believe this is our mystery person. You can see a blurry shadow by Raphael right here." He pointed to the image that made his heart constrict. "Then for a little while nothing seems to move, the tapes go so grainy you can't see anything, then the image clears a little and those shadowy blurs start moving so fast you can't actually see them move, more like they appear in front of different camera's great distances apart. Then the camera's go completely offline until we enter the room. You can see us entering right here. And if you look, here is us looking at the monster, which is just a black smudgy blur."
"So the monster and whoever saved Raph are able to block themselves from the cameras? Is it some sort of cloaking device."
Donatello shook his head. "If it is, then it's like nothing I have ever seen. I have sensors that are specifically designed to block any electronic signals produced by something like that. After we battled the tech ninjas I made sure we wouldn't ever be caught off guard by something like that again. I even have a bio scanner that would pick up any object bigger than a cat." Donatello looked at the screen again, a sinking feeling filling his stomach. He rolled his chair over to the computer that controlled all of the scanners and ran a diagnostic test. The computer quickly ran a full scan and an error message popped up on the screen for the scanner that had been tripped.
"The sensor that tripped hadn't even been tripped." Donatello said in a shocked voice.
"What do you mean?" Leonardo asked him in confusion. "It went off."
"Yeah, but it went off because of a computer glitch. Look at this, the computer indicates that this sensor tripped because a software glitch told it to reset itself, which when it did it tripped itself. So it was just pure chance that the sensor tripped at the exact moment that the monster and whoever saved Raphael were there."
They both looked silently at the screen. "Leo, whatever this is," he gestured towards the screen with the shadowy blurs. "It may be bigger than anything we can handle, if it comes to that."
"I wish Master Splinter was here. He would know what to do." Leonardo said looking at the screen.
Please please read and reveiw!