Chapter 18 - Good For What Ails You
The door to the dojo slid open slowly, the rough sound of wood scraping against itself seemed to ring out in the otherwise quiet space. Donatello stood at the ready, with his bo staff in hand, his younger brother posed behind him with his kusarigama chain out. They scanned the room for signs of movement, but neither of the older brothers seemed to be inside. One long olive toned leg stepped into the room, as Donnie cautiously lead the pair into the space.
"Where are they? Where's Raph? Where's the egg?" Mikey whispered, the panic rising with every question as he followed along behind him.
"Shhhh, I don't know." The taller one whispered back. His focus swept across the room, landing on the twisting tree in the center as the most viable hiding spot. He silently gestured them towards it.
Creeping below one of the lower branches, Donnie held up a hand indicating to his brother to be quiet. "Did you hear that?"
Before given the chance to answer, the form of their eldest brother pounced down onto Donnie from the shadow of the branches. He caught Donnie's shoulder as he leapt, knocking him back, his shell hitting the worn rug. Laid out on his shell, Leo loomed over him, his eyes were locked with his and they were as black as ink.
Without a word, Leo reached back for his swords sliding them out from their holster and swinging at his brother all in one movement. Making use of his quick reflexes, Donnie was just able to bring his bo up to shield himself from the blow as the swords clanged against it.
"Where is the egg?!" Leo shouted in a voice that was gravely and cold.
"What? I don't have it!" Donnie's voice cracked as he shouted back, confused by the questioning and distracted by the attack. Pushing against his brother's force with his staff, he swung up a leg, causing Leo to step back, allowing him enough space to spring up onto his feet.
With little pause, Leo struck again, his swords swinging dangerously close to Donnie's plastron. It seemed his intentions were lethal, as he spun around slicing again with his katana, causing Donnie to barely dodge the sharpened instruments.
While Leonardo's movements were vicious, it seemed whatever trance he was in had narrowed his focus, allowing Mikey to sneak up from behind and lasso him with the chain of his kusarigama. In a swift and precise flip, Michelangelo had circle his brother again and yanked down on the chains from behind, trapping his arms down by his side. Donatello leapt forward, using his bo as a battering ram and hit him square in the chest. The combined attack from the front as well as the pull of the chains from behind him, caused him to lose balance and topple back, dropping his swords in the process.
Kicking the swords aside, Donnie ran up to help Mikey hold back against the weight of Leonardo's struggle.
Caught in a tangle of chains on the floor, Leo glared up at him, his black eyes unfocused and angry, darting around from behind his blue mask. He let out a roar, that had Donnie not seen him open his mouth, he might have doubted the sound had been produced by him.
"Can you hold him down?" Donnie asked, as he quickly pulled the blood drawing supplies from his belt.
Mikey grunted against the effort, his brother was strong, but forcing him to the ground had helped considerably. "Just hurry Donnie!"
"I've got this side." A new voice broke into the room and Mikey spun his head around to see the brother in red approaching.
"Raph! Nice timing bro, where've you been?"
"I managed to get the egg away from him." Raph blurted, as he grabbed the other side of Leo's chains, helping to hold him in place. "What are you doing?"
Donnie used a small alcohol wipe to clean down a patch of skin on Leo's upper arm, his struggle not helping the task. "I need a blood sample, to work on an antivenom." He paused to jab the needle into Leo's arm, causing him to howl out in pain. He didn't mean to be so rough, but he wasn't making it very easy. He would have preferred to use a tourniquet and a vacuum tube to get a larger sample, but with their constraints, he just had to hope that he'd get enough in this one go.
Mikey yanked down on the chains even tighter to try and hold his brother as still as possible. Pulling back on the syringe, the small vial slowly filled with red fluid. As soon as it was full, Donnie pulled the needle out and carefully capped it, placing it back into the small kit he had pulled it from and tucking the whole thing back inside his belt. His focus now on their other task, he turned to Raph beside him, holding tight to the chains. "Where's the egg?"
"I uh, I hid it." Raph muttered.
"What? Why? We need it!" Donnie yelled in frustration.
"I'm not sure, I just…" Raph trailed off, as he seemed to lose his train of thought, his grip on the chains slackened.
Mikey caught Donnie's eye, as they both had the same thought, that this was similar to the weird behavior Leonardo had been exhibiting since the sting.
"Raph, are you ok?" Donnie asked. He grabbed the chains around the front of Leo, seeing the difficulty that Mikey was having to hold him in place, now that Raph had all but let go.
Raphael didn't answer, but stood up and looked at his brother with confusion in his eyes.
Donnie held tight to the chains as Leo continued his struggle against them, letting out another angry growl. He looked back over at Raphael who still seemed dazed and lost. He realized that if this sickness was somehow communicable, then they were all in for trouble. And that's when he noticed a dark bruise on the side of Raphael's neck.
"Is that a bite mark?" Donatello questioned.
Raph reached up and rubbed a hand over the tender flesh, but otherwise didn't react to Donnie's question.
Leo seemed to take advantage of their distraction, with little warning he went from pulling against Mikey's hold on the chain to pushing back and head butting him in the snout with the back of his skull.
"OW!" Mikey hollered, his hands letting go of the chains to grasp at his beak, blood pouring from one nostril.
The instant the chains dropped, Leo sprang forward again. Donnie who had been pulling down on the chains from the other side, hadn't been expecting the sudden shift in balance and practically pulled Leo towards him. Leo used the momentum to push Donnie down onto his back, the impact knocking the wind out of him while he wrestled him to the floor. Throwing up an arm to shield himself from his brother's attack Donnie felt teeth sink into his wrist.
"OW! You bit me!" He yelped.
Leaning over Donatello, a slow satisfied smile spread across Leo's face. The black of his eyes accentuated the creepiness behind the look.
And then, as though he had suddenly remembered something, Leo sat back upright. Shaking himself from the chains before leaping up and darting for the door.
"Raph grab him!" Donnie hollered out. But as soon as he was half-way to his feet, he realized Raph was already gone.
His nose still a bleeding mess, Mikey reached out and barely caught the edge of Leo's shell as he zipped past him.
"Let go of him Mikey!" Donnie shouted with such fierceness that Mikey immediately obeyed, though somewhat confused as to what had happened.
The two clambered to their feet as they watch the figure of their eldest brother disappear into the dark hallway.
"C'mon, quick, we need to get back to my lab." Donnie gestured Mikey to follow him and the two crept out into the hallway.
"Dude, why'd you hab me leb him go?" Mikey asked, his voice sounding nasal-like as he pinched shut his bleeding nostril.
"Leo was somehow able to transfer his sickness to Raph through a bite." Donatello answered grimly.
"Bud, didn't he just bide you?!" Mikey flailed his free hand around in panic as he spoke.
"All the more reason I need you to stay away from him, one of us needs to keep a level head to work on an antidote." Donnie looked over at his goof-off little brother. "And you're the last one left."
"Well shid."
ll
April had awoken bright and early the next morning after her talk with Splinter. She felt refreshed, and rejuvenated, many of her worries now forgotten. Talking through all of her concerns with her sensei had eased her mind and made her realize that she had perhaps been too quick to judge the authenticity of Donatello's feelings. Eager to see him again and apologize, she practically leaped from her sleeping mat to quickly wash up and start the day.
"You seem to be in better spirits this morning." Splinter greeted her as she knelt down to join him for morning tea.
"Hei sensei. Thank you for your guidance." She smiled up at him, talking a sip of the smooth hot liquid.
They enjoyed their morning bread and tea in silence, each in their own thoughts. The longer they sat, the more April dwelled over the events of the last couple of days, and how she had jumped to conclusions. Poor Donatello had done nothing wrong other than simply living a life hidden away from others. Her relaxed thoughts were quickly overcome with guilt and she became nervous about whether he would forgive her.
Thinking back to not that long ago, she recalled a conversation she'd had with Raphael, in which she had promised herself that she would never intentionally hurt his brother. And while it certainly wasn't intentionally planned, and she'd hoped to avoid even further hurt in the future, the truth was she had seen on his face the pain she had caused him. She only hoped that she could make it up to him.
April caught herself fidgeting in place, feeling restless about seeing him again. Pinning her hands below her tucked knees, she attempted to sit still.
"Perhaps you would consider shortening our journey? We could certainly head back today, if you'd like." Splinter kindly suggested, and April appreciated the act as though it was his idea.
"I'm that obvious, huh?" April asked, feeling her cheeks warm. "This was supposed to be a retreat for you as well Sensei. I can wait."
"My dear, you were the one in need of the time away to clear your mind. If you feel that it has helped you, than that is what is important."
April beamed up at Splinter, her smile stretching from eye to eye. "I mean, if you don't mind, I think I would like that very much."
Splinter smiled and nodded in return.
She missed her father terribly, but this man had stepped in as a true mentor. Over the months since she had met him, he had helped to care for her and look out for her well being and she was immensely thankful to have him.
She stood from the table and bowed politely to her mentor. "Thank you Master Splinter. I guess I'll go pack up my things."
"One last request before we head back." Splinter stood as well, placing his porcelain cup on the small table between them. "I would like a demonstration of some of the new techniques Raphael has been teaching you."
April could feel her face heat again, this time from the mention of her "secret" training sessions. She had been hoping that he might not bring it up. But considering that he seems to be letting it slide that it was happening in the first place, she figured she better at least give him what he requested.
"Hei Sensei."
ll
Thankful that the two eldest brothers seemed to have gone off on a race to find the hypnotic egg. Mikey and Donnie used the distraction to their advantage, and quickly made it down the hallway and securely locked themselves inside Donnie's lab.
On his brother's orders, Mikey had grabbed himself an ice pack for his nose while Donnie made a beeline to the sink to clean out his wound. Holding the cool compress against his snout with one hand, he dug around a supply drawer for some gauze and shoved a small clump into his nostril. He didn't have time to deal with it bleeding.
Approaching the sink, he could see the hastily discarded wraps from his brother's hands in a pile on the floor, and splashes of iodine spilled on the counter top. He overheard Donnie mutter a curse word to himself.
"Donnie? Everything ok?"
Donnie let out a disappointed sigh. "Well, he definitely broke the skin."
"But you got it all cleaned out before it could make you sick right?" Mikey asked nervously as he watched him bandage up the wound.
"I don't know, but either way we've got to start working on an antidote. I managed to get a small sample of Leo's blood, we'll just have to hope that's enough."
"What about the egg?" Mikey asked. "It's still out there somewhere."
"We'll have to deal with that later. I just hope it keeps Leo and Raph distracted long enough that they don't attempt to leave the lair."
Mikey shifted the ice pack on his nose and let out an audible gulp as the seriousness of the situation sunk in.
"I hope you're ready to take a crash course in chemistry, because I've got to show you how to make this antidote, in case I start to lose it."
"Donnie, I don't know if you know this, but science isn't really my thing." Mikey shrugged his hands out to the side in a gesture of helplessness.
"Which is why I need you to pay attention." Donnie patted his younger brother's arm and looked him in the eye. He knew his brother had a bad wrap for being the goof-off and liked to play the part of the imbecile. But Donnie had known him long enough to see that he always came through when it counted, and that he was more intelligent than he let on. "You can do this Michelangelo."
They spent the next while working quickly as Michelangelo watched his brother prep the blood sample and place it in his centrifuge. He blabbered on about filtering out the plasma or something like that, but Mikey couldn't be certain.
He tried his best to take in what his brother was telling him, but listening to him talk about all these terms like antibodies and enzymes and proteins, started to remind him of the teacher in the Charlie Brown cartoons who spoke in unintelligible squawks.
"Mikey are you even listening?" Donnie barked at him, causing him to jolt upright on his stool. He nodded and leaned in to watch as his lanky sibling moved around the various supplies he was prepping out on his counter.
Taking furious notes as he walked through the process, Donnie stated it would provide some kind of guidance for Mikey to reference. In an effort to lighten the mood, Mikey tried to drop a few jokes about how it wasn't going to do him any good since his handwriting was akin to literal chicken scratches, but the glare he got back was definitely too stressed out to be amused.
The audience of the room sat in silence for what felt like hours as Donnie lined up petri dishes and various equipment, occasionally adding new notes to his ever growing list. He had verbally gone over the next steps for Mikey and forced him to repeat it like a billion times. There was nothing more they could do at this point until the first step had completed.
Mikey leaned on the counter watching his brother work, while he prodded the swollen side of his beak. He mentally tested his memory over which sciencey contraption was which.
"What do you think they're doing out there?" Mikey asked breaking the silence.
Donnie stopped what he was writing and glanced back at his security monitors. "I dunno, but at least they're still in the lair." He gestured over to the screen with green lights happily blinking. "I have all of the perimeter alarms turned on, so there's no way they'll get out without us knowing."
"How much longer do you think we have until that egg hatches?" Mikey added to his list of ever growing questions, fear evident in his voice.
"Let's just hope it's longer than we –." Donnie stopped mid sentence, his eyes blankly staring across the room.
'Um dude?" Mikey waved a hand in front of his face. "Donnie, you ok bro?"
For a full 10 seconds, he didn't move in the slightest, but suddenly he blinked and shook his head as if physically trying to loosen cobwebs from his mind.
"It's happening isn't it?" Mikey's voice quivered.
Donnie turned towards his brother, and while they were clearly full of fear, Mikey had never been so relieved to see the brown color of his eyes under the purple mask.
"For a second there, the egg was all I could focus on. I wanted to drop everything I was doing and go find it." He reached up with one hand and rubbed his temple as though fighting off a migraine.
"But you didn't, so that's good." Mikey replied, trying to sound cheery.
"This is very bad Mikey, the venom is kicking in even faster than I thought."
"So what do we do?" Mikey shuddered.
Donnie spun around and pointed at a line of cabinets against the back corner. "Bottom right hand side of the red cabinet, there should be some syringe injection guns. Start prepping three canisters, we're going to have to work faster."
Mikey hustled across the room and started digging through the cabinet. He wasn't entirely sure what a 'syringection' gun was, but he was guessing it was the creepy staple-gun looking thing with the needles attached to the end of it. He gathered the gun and a box with what he hoped were the canisters and rushed back to set them on the counter.
Surprised to not find his brother where he left him, he spun around quickly, to look for him. His heart sank for half a second thinking that he might have run off to go on the world's creepiest egg hunt, but was relieved to find him at his security monitors, frantically typing something into the controls.
"Oh no." He heard Donnie all but whisper.
"What now?! I can't handle this!" Mikey shouted back, moving behind him to look at the camera feed that was pulled up onto the screen.
Donnie tapped on the screen, the fuzzy black and white footage showed two familiar people walking down the tunnels. "April and Sensei just set off the perimeter alarms."
"I thought they weren't coming back for another day!?" Mikey exclaimed. "They can't be here with crazy Raph and Leo roaming around!"
"You think I don't know that?!" Donnie's voice cracked in panic.
They continued to watch the monitors in fear, at one point the two blurry figures stopped and only the taller of the two continued on.
"Aaack! Why are they splitting up?" Donnie shouted at the small screen, before turning back to his brother. "I have to go warn them to leave!"
"I dunno man, what if you start going all wiggy? Maybe I should go?"
"No. My state of mind is all the more reason you need to keep working on the anti-venom."
Just then the constant whirring of the centrifuge came to a stop and a small ding alerted them that it was complete.
"I have to go to her Mikey." Donnie pleaded, and Mikey could see the torment in his eyes. "If something happened…"
"I've got this, bro." Mikey nodded confidently.
Donnie let out a sigh of relief and looked out the peephole verifying the hallway was empty before sliding the large metal door open. "Lock it behind me. I'll be right back!"
"I'll be waiting." Mikey replied quietly as he bolted the door shut.
End Chapter 18 - Good For What Ails You
A/N - SIGH, I realize I say this every chapter, but seriously, I wish I had more time to write and post these faster. I know this chapter was a little light in content, and I apologize, but I wanted to get **something** posted for my dear readers that have been waiting so patiently!
Ack! Some creeptastic fun is coming up next, but the stupid boring set up had to come first! I'm curious what kind of interactions you're all excited to see with APRIL Vs the WASP-ZOMBIES?
I actually thought the episode was fantastic, but I was disappointed that April was LIVING with them during this ep and still didn't get any screen time. So yeah, instead of just writing an episode tag, I wrote a multi-chapter action/adventure romance, because; why the hell not! ;)
Thanks again for sticking around! We're approaching the climax, followed by the warm and squishy wrap-up! (I just keep writing everything WAY longer than I intended!)
Also, after you read this puppy, head on over to the 2014 TMNT Fanfiction competition (stealthystories dot prophpbb dot com) and read/vote for the many AMAZING fics and authors on the list. (Myself included) A big hearty thanks to the folks that nominated me, it still amazes me that people enjoy reading my stuff, but I'm so glad you do!