One minute, Mikey's running after Leo to find out what's got Raph yelling like his lungs are about to pop, and the next, the bathroom door shatters into a thousand splinters.
"Get down!" Leo yells. He shoves Mikey down, shielding their necks and the back of Mikey's head with his arm, then he's up and moving, so fast Mikey's barely on his feet again before Leo's shouldered his way into the bathroom.
"Mikey?" Donnie calls. When Mikey looks back, he sees the green dome of Donnie's head angling in his direction. "You guys okay? What's happening?"
D's got enough to worry about, Mikey thinks. He aims for the bathroom, squinting through the steam. "We're good!" he yells, then course-corrects: "We've got this! Don't —"
That's when the smell hits him, like nasty month-old meat, and Mikey starts gagging. It's everywhere, crawling up his nose to sit in his brain, sliding down his throat like grease. His stomach clenches like a fist, and Mikey staggers midstep, leaning against the doorframe while he clamps a hand over his nose and tries to breathe through his mouth.
"Leo?" he yells, pushing forward into the bathroom. His eyes are watering so badly he trips over the jagged edge of the door, and nearly sprawls on his plastron before he pushes himself up. So it's a bad smell. Raph or Casey probably ripped one in the shower, or one of the toilets backed up. He's smelled worse.
No. Mikey goes cold all over, even with the shower running and the steam smothering him. He's smelled this, on April's hair and Casey's hoodie. Now he knows why Raph and Leo are quiet.
Now he knows the green shapes moving toward him aren't his brothers.
Panicking sounds really good. Screaming, flailing, running in circles until he finds his brothers and they all figure out what to do — it's worked in the past, but that was against mousers or Footbots, enemies that made sense. Right now, Mikey's up against ghost dogs and he's not gonna panic. He's gonna get mad.
But first, he's got to be quiet. He's got two, maybe three seconds before the dogs get to him. Maybe Leo could come up with a plan in that much time, but Mikey's not Leo. He doesn't plan.
He holds still, even though every bit of him's itching to move, right up until he sees the dogs leap. They swarm out of the steam, mouths wide open and dripping, ready to eat him alive — but Mikey's not there anymore. He somersaults under them, landing in a crouch right as the dogs collide mid-air and start whimpering and snarling at each other.
Down low, the smell's even worse, but Mikey's lungs are ready to burst. He sucks in a slimy lungful of air and tries not to puke as he skids forward through the puddles.
He can't see anybody. His stomach flips — how long has he been in here? Long enough for his brothers to be —?
He whines, like a baby, and flushes hot all over just as his hand hits a thick, cold ankle. Raph. He found Raph, and there's Leo, knocked out on Raph's other side. Relief drops him to his hands and knees. He's gonna get Raph out, make sure Raph's okay, and he's gonna do the same for Leo and Casey. He's got this.
Something snarls to his left, and Mikey freezes with his hand on Raph's ankle. He glances at Leo, just to know how this'll play out - but Leo doesn't move.
"Oh, crap," he says, as the dog paces out of the steam and curls its lip back from green, shiny teeth. A lot of teeth. "Crap," he says again.
The dog goes all tense, foaming at the mouth. Mikey has maybe half a second to get between his bros and the dog, and all those teeth, but another dog growls behind him, and he can't take his eyes off the dog in front of him to see where the second one's coming from. He reaches down to his belt for his nunchuks — one is better than none — and takes a deep breath.
"Mikey!" Donnie calls from the door. "Are you guys okay in there? What about — oh dammit!"
The last word's muffled, like Donnie's talking through his hand. "Leo!" Donnie yells again. "Talk to me!"
"D, look out!" Mikey screams, as the dog behind him leaps over his shell and speeds toward the door. Toward Donnie. "You got incoming!"
"I —" Donnie's voice cuts out, like someone turning off a radio, and then there's just a heavy thud and a few grunts over the sound of the shower.
Mikey hesitates, eyes still locked on the dog in front of him. If he can get to the shower, he can get rid of the extra noise, the steam. He can take this one dog, he knows it, he's Mikey and one creepy green dog isn't going to do shit to him, but that means leaving Raph and Leo and Casey alone — and Mikey doesn't know how many dogs there are.
He doesn't even know how to fight them.
"Mikey!" Donnie sounds half-strangled, but now Mikey can hear Usagi and April's voices over the rush of the shower, shouting things he can't make out.
I pity the fool who tries to knock out Donnie when April's around, Mikey thinks, a laugh busting out of him all nervous and shrill. The dog stops panting for a heartbeat, looks back at the sound of Donnie's voice. Mikey uses the distraction — it's what he does, right? — and beats it for the shower, slipping in every other puddle. The dog snarls behind him and starts to chase him, but Mikey gets into the showers and slaps the water off, throwing himself against the shower wall as the dog leaps at the empty air where he used to be.
"Ha-ha, yeah, that's what I thought!" Mikey pulls his nunchuks free, spinning them in the steam. "Can't touch this!"
The dog picks itself off the ground and snaps at Mikey's ankles as he dances back toward Raph. It's not big, but it's fast, with thick claws scraping at the tiles. Mikey has a split second to think of the gouges in Donnie's legs, and the hole in Casey's side, then the dog bounces off the floor, straight at his face, mouth snapping.
"Whoa, uh, no! Too close!" No time for correct form; Mikey straight-up bashes the dog in the face with his nunchucks, wham, bam, no thank you ma'am, and watches half its jaw go flying off into the thinning steam. A long green tongue flaps uselessly, and the dog makes a horrible gobbling sound, like a turkey on acid, and starts to seize up, its eyes rolling.
Gross, Mikey thinks, his heart pounding all the way up his throat, but he swings again when the dog stumbles, and smashes his nunchuck straight through what's left of its head.
Usagi watches Donatello freeze when the jade dog bursts through the wreckage of the bathroom door, trailing steam and long trails of its own substance. The paralysis lasts for a mere heartbeat before Donatello sweeps a long arm in front of his plastron to block the dog's jaws, but Usagi read his expression in that instant, the set of Donatello's features more eloquent than any words. Exhaustion, frustration, grim resignation — but no fear.
If there were more time, Usagi would be impressed.
The dog collides with the broad, flat back of Donatello's wrist and tumbles to the ground, snarling and frothing in a paroxysm of rage, and is on its feet again before Usagi can draw his sword.
"Mikey!" Donatello yells, voice strained. "Are you okay in there? What about — oh dammit!" He lurches backward to evade the dog's teeth — nothing, no creature alive, dead, or something in between, should have teeth that gleam so cruelly - but Donatello's shell collides with the wall, He has nowhere to go.
There is simply not enough room for Usagi to swing his sword; he could stab, or thrust, but the dog's leaps are too erratic for a simple blow. He risks injuring Donatello — but he must take the risk, or watch his friend be torn apart.
"Donatello, hold!" he cries, thinking a quick prayer for steady hands and a sure heart, and readies himself to strike a blow that never falls.
"I got this, Usagi!" April streaks past him, still in her armor, and slams into the dog with her shoulder. Her momentum carries the dog to the end of the hall; seconds later, April lets out a hoarse, furious cry, and a silent explosion of air slams painfully against Usagi's ears.
The dog, for its part, explodes.
Usagi sees it only as a brief, sick flash of light; one moment, there are claws and teeth worrying at April's armor, and then she throws her arms wide, her cry echoing over Michelangelo's suddenly-audible shout from the bathroom, and then light dazzles Usagi's eyes, and a last whimper breaks the chill air in the hall.
"Okay," April says. "Note to self, that hurts." She staggers as she stands, steadies as she turns back to Donatello and Usagi. Her chest and legs are spattered milky-green, gobbets dangling from her arms, and — Usagi knows this is uncharitable of him, but he cannot help thinking it — she smells.
"Are you — did it bite you?" Donatello is already on his feet, his own peril forgotten in his concern for April. His eyes dart toward the bathroom, and as soon as she nods and brushes her fingers against his arm, Donatello turns to the bathroom, climbing over the splintered wood. "Guys! Leo? Mikey? Talk to me!"
"They're good," comes Michelangelo's voice, rough from his heavy breathing. "At least I think they are — Leo's out, so's Raph, but Casey — dude, Casey's…" His voice fades to a murmur, Donatello's humming alongside it.
"I'm going in," says April, passing Usagi in a wave of stench, but he catches her arm, his attention diverted, only half-aware of the sharp, how-dare-you look she gives him.
"Wait," he says. "We should check the rest of the lair."
"The guys need us." April is clearly unconvinced, her face tightening as she tugs her arm from his grip. Equally clearly, she wants to be inside the bathroom, helping. She has no patience, Usagi thinks, and takes her arm in his hand again, drawing her down the hall.
"Usagi, what the hell?" she snaps. "I don't hear anything. What are you — what is that?"
He stops at the top of the stairs, letting April pull away once more as he pads silently into the common room. The child still lies motionless on the couch, with Hamato Yoshi crouched over her, his fur rumpled as if he has just risen from sleep. He gives them a questioning look, but says nothing as he rises, moving past them toward the bathroom.
The air trembles against his ears, as if with fast-approaching footsteps. Usagi listens, follows the faint sound to its source.
"There." He points, and April's head snaps to follow the line of his arm.
"The lab?" she whispers. "Who would — the portal, come on!" She sprints off without waiting for Usagi to follow.
The footsteps stop before they reach the door, but the air gathers itself, a deep breath before a storm, and he settles his hand around the hilt of his sword as April pulls open the door and steps inside. No lights burn in the lab, beyond a dim blue glow from one of Donatello's machines.
Usagi turns to the right, close to the wall, pleased when April moves off to the left without a word. She is silent, her hands empty — but she needs no weapon now, does she, when she is such an effective one on her own?
He smiles to himself as he takes a slow, soft step, listening for a strange mouth to open and draw breath, or a strange hand to strike glass. From the corner of his eye, he sees April, a dim green phosphorescence clinging to her chest, and thinks, If anyone is here, will they see or smell her first?
His smile grows, only to freeze on his face an instant later. A new sound has reached his ears: a slow, uneven creak of metal upon metal.
April's eyes are locked on something at the back of the lab. She sends Usagi a brief glance, jerks her head toward the sound, and unsheathes her tessen. The sound goes on, unheeding as they cross back to the middle of the lab and advance.
A ragged, humped shape surfaces from the gloom. An arm lifts, the motion obscured by a obscure blur of movement, and spins an instrument on Donatello's desk.
"Wait," whispers April. "He's — he's dead."
The shape lifts its head, the blurred movement more distinct now — a pair of wings, Usagi realizes, just barely catching the light from Donatello's machines.
"You — Usagi, get down!" April does not wait for him to react; once more she uses her body as a bludgeon, and shoves Usagi to the floor as the shape whirls around, buzzing, and a stream of hot, noxious fluid cuts through the air where his head was seconds before.
"He's dead," April says, one last time, her teeth gritted. "Oh shit, keep him away from the portal!"
No time to ask April which instrument is the portal, no time to demand to know who he is. There is only time for Usagi to roll with April as another stream of fluid flies at them, and the buzzing sound rises, splitting and shaking and utterly mad.
"April O'Neil," the shape splutters. It rises above them, spitting over and over, without aim or reason. Usagi dodges, rolls, and dodges again, the hot, corroded smell of acid burning into his sinuses. He has lost April; he cannot reach her, cannot see her, can only dodge —
"Hello, pretty girl," buzzes the fly, its face finally coming into the light. Usagi hisses through his teeth; its face is rotted, something pulled from a wet and filthy grave, and if it once was a man, it did not die as one.
On the other side of the lab, April leaps, her tessen sweeping in a bright arc before her. Usagi charges, sword held steady in both hands.
Raph's going to rip the shell off whoever's shaking him. He's got a headache like he got sideswiped by a bus, and every part of him that isn't hurting is cold and wet.
Just leave me alone, he tries to say, but ends up just groaning instead. The shaking pauses for a second, then starts up again, twice as hard, only now Mikey's chanting Raph's name from somewhere above Raph's head.
"Raph, Raph, dude, Raph, you gotta wake up!" Mikey gives him one last shake, and Raph finally gives in and opens his eyes. "Aw, jeez, Raph," says Mikey, rocking back on his heels. "I didn't think you were gonna wake up."
"Yeah, well, I'm up now." Raph sits up, scrubbing his face with both hands. The fluorescent lights makes his eyes water, and they don't do anything for his headache either. At least it's just a dull throb, not the icepick in his head from two weeks ago.
Fluorescent lights. Cold puddles under his ass and hands. Raph stands up, fast enough to catch his shell on the sink on the way, and leans against it for balance while his headache sets off dizzy sparks behind his eyes. He can just make out the bathroom, the pinkish water on the tiles, and a pile of green crap dissolving a few feet away.
Then the rest of the bathroom comes into focus: the busted door, Splinter kneeling next to Leo, Mikey watching him with dazed eyes, and Donnie, bending over Casey.
Raph drops back to his knees and half-crawls over to Donnie, shoving his brother out of the way. Donnie's good, but he's not Raph. And even if Raph can't say half the stuff he knows he should, he can make sure Casey's good, and then he can beat the crap out of whatever did this to Casey.
Not that there's a long list, Raph reminds himself, and presses a finger to Casey's neck.
Good pulse, steady but thready — gotta watch it, I sound like Mikey. A huge bubble of relief bursts in his chest and forces its way out as a laugh, in time for Casey to groan and push his hands away.
"Raph," says Donnie. He's got his no-nonsense, world's-ending voice on. Raph waits as long as he can before turning to look at Donnie, because nothing good ever came out of that voice. "I need you to hold his arms."
"What?" Raph says, in unison with Casey. Mikey shuffles over to Casey's feet, where he grabs Casey's ankles and holds them tight against the wet floor.
Leo sighs, shudders, and sits up. Raph can tell just by Leo's breathing how hurt he is — not bad at all, which means the priority is still Casey — and that Mikey's winded but just fine. Donnie's got a hell of a bruise on one shoulder, but that barely registers with Raph. What does register, beyond the stink still lingering in the bathroom, Casey's breathing slowly speeding up, and Splinter murmuring to Leo, is Donnie's stare, and how hard he grips Raph's arm.
"Watch it," Raph snaps — brother or not, if Donnie wants him to leave Casey, he'll get popped — but then Mikey's hands on Casey's legs adds up with what Donnie said, and all that relief goes right down the drain. "No — no, you're kidding, that's —"
"I need you," says Donnie, in that dead calm voice no one refuses, "to hold his arms. I'll be quick, but it's going to hurt." He looks down at Casey, with a hard little smile, and shrugs an apology. "I'll be quick, Casey, I promise."
Casey's still a little dull-eyed when he nods, but he goes even paler. "Just hurry it up, camel face," he mumbles, and shuts his eyes.
"Donnie," says Leo, faintly, like his head's pounding just as hard as Raph's. "What are you doing?"
"Got a theory," Donnie says. He bends over Casey, with one last glare at Raph. "It'll go faster with your help."
Raph bites back what he wants to say — eat shit, genius — but he settles next to Casey's head and wraps both hands around Casey's wrists.
And Casey, the idiot, even though he's bleeding all over the bathroom, winks up at Raph. "I'll remember this for later," he says.
Mikey snorts, Donnie's mouth twitches in an almost-smile, and even Leo lets out a huff of laughter. Then Donnie leans down, peering at the hole in Casey's side, and sucks in a sharp breath.
"But I think — I think I see —" He leans down, one hand spreading Casey's wound open as the other plunges in.
Casey breathes in to scream, but before he gets as far as opening his mouth, Donnie's pulled away, the tips of his fingers bloody. Raph lets go — turns out he didn't even need to hold Casey down — but Donnie knots his bloody hand into a fist, swallowing over and over. His face is dark, clouded over like a snowstorm about to hit. An old, deep fear turns over in Raph's gut. Yeah, he's tough, Leo's mysterious, Mikey's Mikey, but Donnie's scary, in a way none of them can touch.
"It's a tooth," Donnie says. The words hit the floor and stay there, no echoes. "A tooth." Then the dark cast to his face is gone, and he throws himself to his feet and out the door, past Leo and out of sight.
"A tooth," says Casey. "Ugh." He falls back against the floor, a little color coming back to his face. "Anyone wanna tell me what happened?"
"Should've let us look under your damn bandages, Jones," Raph says, meeting Leo's eyes for the first time. Leo lifts his eyebrows, then nods back toward the common room. The message is clear: get ready for anything.
"Not an answer, green machine." Casey tries to sit up and falls back, hissing. "Shit. Shit."
"Stay here, Casey. Get cleaned up," says Leo, already on his feet, all fearless leader. "Raph, keep an eye on him. I'll bring your sai to you. Mikey, Sensei — with me."
Raph nods, slides a hand around Casey's shoulders, and tries not to think about what else could be waiting.
The Boar strokes Karai's hair, making impatient noises deep in its throat. Its fingers snag every knot, until Karai has to bite the insides of her cheeks to stop herself from screaming just get it over with, just kill me. That would make the Boar take its time, and Karai wants it over fast. She's not afraid of pain, but she'd rather avoid being mocked as the Boar destroys her.
Its hands trail, warm and damp, down the skin of her neck, teasing at the ragged, bloodless edges of the wound on her shoulder. Pain sparks at its touch, but Karai expected that, and manages to hold still and stare straight ahead.
The back door to the lair stands closed and locked. That doesn't matter. The Boar has all the keys it needs: the teeth, Stockman, and now Karai.
Footsteps race past, close, on the other side of the door. Not Leo's feet — even at his top speed, Leo is graceful, as concerned with form as he is with function, and the empty space in Karai's chest would ache, if she let it.
"My lovely," breathes the Boar, right against Karai's ear. Its breath is a swamp fog; she feels its smile as it presses its mouth against her neck. She doesn't shudder, but its smile grows anyways, like even her indifference delights it. "Oh, my Karai, look, look at how I have brought you home."
No wonder the Boar's so pleased with itself; this lair wasn't home any more than the old one, but it could have been, if she had chosen peace over satisfaction.
It occurs to Karai, seven years too late, that all of this can be laid at her feet. If she had said no, or tried to help Leo, if she had never kissed him to begin with —
She loved him, once. It doesn't matter now. Leo's home will be nothing but rubble soon.
The lock creaks, and the door falls open, the rich, warm smells of the family pouring out: leather, oil, sweet incense and soap and yes, pizza, and Karai swallows, her throat nothing but dust.
"You want to die," says the Boar. "Oh, lovely, sweet, succulent Karai, my delicious one, you are already dead. I have one more use for you, one more night with your hand acting as mine, and then I will take the rest of you." A laugh, smothered in Karai's skin and hair. "You shall do my work, while I deal with the champion. Will that not satisfy you, my sweet one?"
When Karai doesn't answer, the Boar digs its fingers into her wound. Karai hisses, hate briefly filling her mouth, her lungs, but the feeling passes before it can fill her chest and do her any good. The Boar's fingers plunge deep, searching, and when it finally tugs the tooth free, Karai feels nothing at all. She's empty, truly empty.
The Boar laughs again, its teeth rasping over the skin of Karai's throat. She tells herself not to tense, that it won't hurt as much if she stays relaxed, but the bite doesn't come. What she feels instead is a vibration in the stones under her feet, and in the air brushing her cheeks. No sound follows it, but the air trembles, and something washes against her, a faint tide tugging at her fingers and tongue.
Magic. Karai sneers. She's had enough magic for twenty lifetimes. If the turtles and their little friends decided to try and fight the Boar on its own terms — if that crippled Bull is involved — then they're bigger idiots than she thought.
The Boar feels the tide too; it tenses its fingers in Karai's shoulder, plucking at a half-exposed nerve. Karai twitches, and the Boar sighs.
"It changes nothing," whispers the Boar. "A brief distraction." Its fingers slide away. "Be my blade. Do my work this last time, my lovely. Wait until Slash has the brothers distracted, and then —" It savors the last words, and Karai knows it savors her resistance before it crushes her will. "Kill the rat."
Karai tells her legs no, don't move, but it's far too late, seven years too late. Her feet take one step after another, silent steps that lead her through the door, down the hall, toward a man who would have been her father, if she had wanted him to be.
There's only one thought in Donnie's head as he races toward the lab: teeth. He spares exactly one glance for Angel, who's still limp and quiet on the couch, before he picks up his pace, gritting his teeth as his hand tightens around the tooth and the point cuts through the skin of his palm.
April got the tooth out of him, but Casey walked around with one planted in his body, a bitter seed, its roots spreading every day.
At least there were only two, Donnie thinks. And they're dead now. So unless the one in the lab — but that's impossible, it's been sitting in a drawer for weeks.
He knows better than to trust logic by now. Just one imperative: get to the lab, and kill anything in there that isn't his family.
The door's already open; someone breathes harsh and tight just beyond it. Donnie slides in, pathetically glad that Leo made him wear his bo around the lair even if he's not fighting, and takes in the wreckage of his lab.
"What —" Donnie pauses with his hand wrapped around his bo, ready to pull it from its sheath. "Are you guys okay? What happened?" he asks, when he gets his breath back, when he's not thinking oh god, my lab in a fevered half-panic.
Usagi looks up from bandaging his leg. The rabbit's face contorts as he tightens the bandage over a fresh burn, pink as raw meat, and he hisses as the knot draws closed. "I believe it is done," says Usagi, nodding toward April in the far corner of the lab.
The destruction — papers and binders thrown everywhere like confetti, broken pipettes and vials shattered on the floor, Timothy's old tank cracked — centers around April. Her back's to him, her tessen forgotten a few feet behind her. As Donnie crosses the mess, are you okay forming in his mouth, April lifts her leg and stomps on something just out of sight.
"April?" Donnie asks. There's a desk between them, he can't see what April is doing, but he watches her lift her leg again and stomp — and again, and again, a horrible squelch following every movement of her leg. "April!"
She turns around, high color in her cheeks. "Stockman," she says. "It — the Boar — he's dead, but it was still using him, Donnie. It talked through him." She drags her fingers through her hair, all her teeth bared. "Look," she says, moving aside to let him through. "I think we killed him, but I don't know." A high breathless laughs knocks out of her, and she slumps against the desk. "So I've been kicking the shit out of what's left to make sure."
Donnie doesn't like the abstraction in her voice, or the flush riding her skin, but April waves him away when he tries to steady her. She keeps her eyes on the rotting pile at their feet, like she expects it to wake up and start fighting again. The way their luck's always run, it's not unlikely.
"It was just Stockman?" Donnie asks a few moments later, caught between hot urgency and the need to piece together what he can before trying to come up with a plan. "No more dogs?" When April frowns at him, he opens his bloody hand and shows her the tooth.
April's eyes snap open, comprehension dawning, and Donnie's chest fills with gratitude, in spite of the circling anxiety gnawing at the edge of his mind. He can almost feel her mind flowing down the same path as his own.
"Nothing but Stockman," she says. "And that was bad enough, but — oh god, Casey. The tooth -"
"Casey's fine," Donnie tells her, then amends himself. "Casey'll be fine."
April frowns, her mouth opening around a question, then Stockman starts to laugh.
They all jump, more startled than horrified, until what used to be Stockman's head lifts off the floor. Donnie can see April's bootprint stamped on one side of Stockman's face. The laughter keeps coming and coming, delighted and utterly mad. The sound bubbles out of the smashed ruin of wet, decaying skin and broken bones, like swamp gas. "Teeth," Stockman says, twitching. "Teeth, teeth, pretty teeth."
Donnie pulls his bo from its sheath, aware of the slackness in his muscles and how slow and out-of-practice his movements are as Stockman keeps twitching and keeps laughing — and starts to rise. When Donnie tries to take a step back, his shell collides with the desk. He's hemmed in on both sides by April and Usagi, no room to swing his bo, no room to fight.
"Oh come on!" he hisses, as Stockman pulls his body together with a long scraping sound, and rises. The broken wings flutter, one almost snapped off at the base, but Stockman rises a few feet off the floor, the gassy laughter still leaking out of his crooked mouth.
April throws herself behind him — for her tessen, Donnie realizes, but also to open up his left flank. Now he has room to move; now Usagi can draw his sword and fight. Stockman makes a clotted, angry sound, like a kitchen sink backing up, and tries to spit acid, but only a few drops spill out of his mouth.
Donnie decides against grace and economy, and swings his bo like a baseball bat. The blow connects with Stockman's stomach, and the already filthy, shredded sweater opens like a mouth to unleash a hot flow of acid. It spatters across the floor of his lab, digging new craters among the smaller pits he's left there himself, and misses his feet by inches.
Stockman finally stops laughing. He's caught his balance, broken wings aside, and he swoops toward Donnie, his stomach leaking.
Donnie raises his bo for another hit, knowing as he swings the angle's too steep and he won't be able to get enough momentum.
Oh well, he thinks, just before an impact that never happens. The instant Stockman is supposed to hit him, April lets out a sharp ha! and Stockman ricochets off to the side.
Donnie lowers his bo as he turns, and finds April looking absurdly pleased with herself, one hand held high. Stockman buzzes furiously, trying to right himself, but April clenches her fist and Stockman hits the wall, splattering acid and bits of himself over the old brickwork.
April in full destructive mode is enticing enough, but seeing her like this is past any reasonable expectation of self-control; Donnie needs to kiss her, and he needs to kiss her now.
Then Usagi clears his throat, and nods at Stockman's spasming body.
"Ah. Right," says Donnie, with a last glance at April.
She nods. "I've got him," she says, the color in her cheeks growing. "Just make it quick, now's not a good time to figure out my limits."
Donnie thumbs the trigger for his naginata, and advances on Stockman a pace ahead of Usagi. They might not be able to kill him — again, Donnie thinks, grimly — but they can disable him. One less toy for the Boar.
Before Donnie can sink his blade into the body at his feet, Angel screams, her voice spiraling high before breaking, and the walls around the lair's front door come tumbling down. The ground convulses under his feet like a muscle contracting. Angel screams again, and a second later comes pelting into the lab, hair loose and eyes wild. "Mon—monster!" she yells.
Donnie nearly snaps at the kid — monster tells them nothing — but then she pulls in a deep breath and clarifies: "Turtle."
"Oh, shit," says April. "Angel, get over here!" The kid comes running, pulling up short when she sees what's left of Stockman, and gives April a bleak, terrified look.
"Donnie!" Mikey shouts, from outside the lab. "Donnie, come quick, we —"
There's a thud, a cut-off scream, and then Slash's laugh, echoing over the sounds of still-crumbling rocks. Raph and Leo start shouting, Splinter roars something Donnie can't make out, and then April shoves him toward the door.
"Go!" she yells. "I'll take care of Angel. Go help Mikey!"
His brothers or April: there's no choice, there's never been any choice. Donnie sprints out of the lab, Usagi at his heels, just in time to catch Mikey as he falls.
April thinks, if I can't handle Stockman, what good am I?
But that's not all of it, is it? It's not just Stockman, and it's not just her life on the life. There's a terrified nineteen-year-old behind her, trying not to cringe, and there's still the portal to protect. She debates calling to Usagi for back-up; an injured rabbit samurai is better than fighting alone, but the minute she opens her mouth, Donnie will come running. Or, worse, Donnie will hesitate.
She adjusts her grip on her tessen. "Angel," she says, in a calm voice that in no way matches her pulse. "Stay behind me, whatever happens."
April doesn't hear if Angel replies; Stockman laughs again, and just outside the lab another wall comes down, and Raph howls, long and wordless.
"P-p-p-pretty," Stockman says through his laugh, more acid spattering from his gaping stomach.
If April never hears that word again, she'll die a happy woman. "Shut up!" she yells, and slashes forward. Stockman flutters out of reach, ducking and weaving through the lab as April chases him, but Stockman's moves are familiar. Leo made them memorize the way Shredder's pet mutants fought, down to the last twitch of their fingers. Nothing has changed; Stockman evades rather than engaging, and relies on the acid to keep enemies at a safe distance.
Whatever Stockman had in his muscles when he died is all the Boar has to work with. But April can adapt, and she's got ten years of thinking on her feet.
She chases Stockman toward the back of the lab, where one of Donnie's supply closets hangs open. It's metal, the locks reinforced against Mikey's curiosity. If she can just get Stockman inside, there's no way his hands will be up to getting it open. Then she can hide Angel, and get back to the real fight.
The power in her likes that idea; it rises from the reservoir deep in her chest where it's been recovering since she smashed the dog. It'll be ready when she calls it, and April grins to herself, already thinking ahead to where she lets loose on Slash, and crushes the bastard's shell.
"April!" shrieks Angel. "Behind you!"
An explosion of air shoves April off her feet. She drops to her knees and rolls out of the way of the acid, but she doesn't move fast enough to avoid Stockman's body as it drops on top of her, abandoned and empty.
She kicks the body away, gagging as the oversweet smell of decay invades her mouth, and staggers to her feet only to find her view of the lab blocked by white silk.
"Pretty girl." The Boar grabs a fistful of her hair. "I hear you have been talking to my friend. Such a foolish, pretty girl." Tears spring into April's eyes as the Boar's hand tightens, and she grinds her teeth together to keep from crying out.
The turtles are still fighting, just out of reach. She hears Splinter shout, and Leo answer, indistinct; Raph roars. Usagi is silent, but she can just catch Donnie's voice, telling Mikey it'll be okay, telling Slash he's done, he's gone.
Donnie, she thinks, as the Boar heaves her to her feet by her hair, then lifts her with a hand around her throat.
The Boar shoves its face close to hers and laughs, its mouth wide and red and stinking of old meat. Grey flesh is caught in between its teeth, and there are so many of them, so many teeth that march right down its throat and into the dark beyond its tongue. April holds her breath, her hands clenched into fists, and plunges her awareness into the flood rising through her.
Light blinds her; Angel cries out, and a few more pipettes shatter, but what April hears most clearly is a roar, petulant and thwarted, close to her ears. The Boar drops her, and April blinks her eyes clear in time to see the Boar stagger back, its lovely face contorted into a waxy mask of rage.
"You little piece of —" The Boar can barely speak. Spittle flecks its lips and cheeks, and it tears at its own face and hair, its tarry eyes narrowed to slits. "You dare," it snarls, and falls on April in a flood of white silk. "You play these games, you have no idea what you play with, you have these tools and —" It cuts itself off, frothing and snarling, and grabs April by the neck one more time.
April's so far past fear she's almost peaceful, face to face with a god that's seconds away from swallowing her whole. But the flood is still rising in her, bright and singing, so she shoves both hands into the Boar's face, and pushes.
A hot, slick liquid gushes over her fingers, reeking like a trash fire, as the Boar's face cracks. When April looks at the Boar again, the flawless white face is cracked straight across the left eye, over the nose, and down the opposite cheek. The right side of the Boar's mouth hangs limp, and when it speaks, the words come out blurred and soft.
"You have not the slightest idea," it slurs, "no, no idea at all, the Bull never told you, never taught you, and you fumble with what never should have been yours. You are nothing, pretty girl."
"Yeah, well." April gasps, with the last of her air, no longer caring, her mind turning out, to the rest of the lair, where the minds of her family are finally, finally clear again, as the Boar chokes her. "But I slowed you down."
The Boar pauses long enough for April to feel Donnie's mind, steel hidden in ivy, and then it smiles. "I have killed you twice," it says, "I will not regret doing so a third time."
April tries to say what the hell do you mean, but her mouth won't open. Then a hand clenches around her spine, heavy and many-fingered, and yanks her away, into the dark and the cold winds.
The last thing she sees is the Boar's face, broken beyond repair, twisted with surprise.
Something in the back of Donnie's head snaps: a thread is cut, a branch breaks. But there's too much else, between Leo trying to give orders and Angel screaming and Slash laughing and Mikey clutching his arm, struggling to breathe, and Donnie ignores it.
Leo sees the battle unfolding from a space deep inside his head, distant as a general wrapped up safe in a bunker, miles away from the actual fighting. Every moment unfolds in front of him in pure, glass-sharp detail: Raph's blows slowing as exhaustion starts to take over, Usagi favoring one leg, Splinter hemming Slash in at the perimeter, Donnie trying to protect Mikey, who's bent over, gasping for breath.
And Slash, towering over them all, kicking aside the wreckage of their home, laughing as he advances on Donnie and Mikey — the weak members of the herd, ready to be taken down.
"Leonardo!" Splinter cries, a warning Leo doesn't need. He knows Slash's moves, how he preys on perceived weakness, how he delighted in hurting Donnie and Mikey.
No time for grace; he runs as fast as he can over the broken stones and leaps, one foot slamming into Slash's plastron with every ounce of Leo's weight behind it. Slash stumbles, all the air knocked out of him, and regains his balance in time for Leo to headbutt him, hard enough for stars to burst behind Leo's eyelids.
"Leo!" roars Raph. A green blur blows past Leo, and rams into Slash's side. "Leo, we can't —"
"I know!" Leo yells back, shaking his head to clear it. Next time, leave the headbutting to Raph and Casey. "Keep him off balance!"
"Like that's gonna happen," Slash says, shoving to his feet, still aimed at Donnie and Mikey. "Gonna like taking you out, fearless leader."
Raph's eyes go wide, a bright, stricken flash as Raph's own words came out of Slash's mouth, so full of hate and anticipation that Leo's gut clenches, and then Raph roars again, both sai raised over his head.
Slash laughs, loud enough to shake the new gravel littering the floor.
No, Leo thinks, as Slash winds up to smash Raph into the floor. Raph's too angry, he's not thinking, he never thinks, never pauses, and he's going to end up smeared all over the floor because he never learns.
And Leo can't get to him. He can't take the blow. He starts to run, the seconds stretching out like taffy as Slash's laughter fills his head. Usagi shouts, Donnie folds himself over Mikey, all of them waiting for the blow to land.
Raph drops like a rock at the last second, teeth bared and eyes blanked out. Slash's blow misses his head by half an inch, and Raph stabs both sai into Slash's ankle.
Someday, Leo will stop underestimating Raph.
Slash howls as Raph yanks his sai free. Thick, blue-black blood spurts out of the wound until Slash claps a hand over his ankle. He spins to face Raph, mouth dropping open.
"You'll pay for that, little brother," he grates, and roars, throwing Raph to the floor hard enough that Raph's head bounces when it hits the floor. Raph's eyes white out, then close briefly — but he doesn't yell, and he punches Slash in the face, one, twice, three times before Leo gets there.
He stabs one katana into the sweet spot, all soft flesh and nerve clusters, between Slash's back and his shell, and twists the blade until Slash rolls away, spitting blood. Leo's katana slips out of his sweaty hand, but he lets it go without scrabbling after it — the harder Slash thrashes as he tries to claw the katana out, the more damage he'll do.
"You little — you little freaks —" Slash hisses, gasping, gloriously ignorant of irony. "I'll kill you, I'll crush you — nnnngh —"
Usagi darts in from Leo's left, a little unsteady, but his hands don't shake as he stands over Slash, watching.
Leo shuts out Slash's voice and bends over Raph, pulling him up. "You good?" he asks, while they have a spare second. Raph nods, his gaze sharpening, and cracks his neck.
"I'm great," Raph says, and makes his way to Usagi's side, standing over Slash as he thrashes. Waiting for Leo's order.
But there are still a few things to do, before that can happen. "Mikey, Donnie, you guys?" Leo asks, standing slowly.
"Could be better," says Donnie. When Leo twists his head to look, one eye on Slash's slowing movements, Donnie's propping Mikey up against a wall. "Broken ribs, probably, but I'd need to take a closer look."
"Ugh," says Mikey, eloquently, and gives Leo a thumbs-up.
"Sensei." Leo feels Splinter's awareness hone in on him as he speaks, a faint prickle on the back of his neck. Slash growls, bloody froth muffling the sound, and Raph kicks him in the head. "Can you help Mikey?"
It's an order politely phrased as a question; Splinter hums an affirmative, and starts to pick his way across the floor. Leo takes a deep breath, thinking of the best ways to finish Slash — he's torn between efficiency and making the bastard suffer, just a little — when a shadow at the corner of his eye slips away from the wall, and coalesces behind Splinter.
Slash starts to laugh, bubbling and thick and half-drowned.
Leo turns, katana raised, but he's still three feet away when Karai blooms out of the scraps of shadow, and stabs Splinter under the ribs.
Raph screams, Donnie screams, Mikey screams, but Leo is silent as their father falls. There's no sound in the universe to match this, the great swelling denial that explodes under Leo's skin as Splinter collapses to his knees, then to the floor. No. Not this.
Splinter's blood drips from Karai's blade. She lifts her head slowly, a drugged sleeper, and meets Leo's eyes. "Hello, hero," she says, and a smile cracks her face, wide and pleased. Her arm pulls back for another thrust: the killing blow, now that she has Leo's attention.
Now Leo screams, and the world whites out around him. In another world, his brothers are still screaming, Slash is laughing, Usagi is calling his name, but all he sees is Splinter's body spilled across the rubble, and Karai smiling at him.
But her smile slips away, leaving her face completely empty until she blinks and looks down at Splinter with something like horror, her sword falling from her hands.
"Oh god, Leo," she says, gasping, hands coming up to ward off a blow. "Leo, I —"
He's going to kill her, he's going to feed her eyes and tongue to her, he's going to tear her apart, the way he should have weeks ago, years ago, he's going to ruin her —
Then the horror melts from her face, replaced by that smile, pleased and unworried as Leo grabs her by the neck. "See you around, Leo," she whispers, and disappears, his fist closing around air. Usagi cries out, sharp dismay like a birdsong, and Leo knows, back where he sits and watches and plans, that Slash is gone too. And here he is, forever the fool, standing in the middle of his ruined home.
Somewhere, Karai is laughing at him.
Don't think about it.
Leo kneels beside Splinter, heartsick, dizzy, feeling for the wound, for a pulse. Under his hand, Splinter's chest rises and falls, and as Leo whispers his name, hearing his brothers echo it as they gather close behind him, Splinter's eyes open.
"My sons," he says, weakly, and smiles. He shudders, but still tries to sit up. "Ah," he says, his eyes closing but the smile lingering, "not, I think, a mortal wound. She is out of practice."
Mikey lets out a nervous laugh. The anxiety pressing against Leo's shell lightens, and then he feels Donnie and Raph leaning against him, for just an instant. They're fine. They'll be fine. They have to be fine.
"Raph," he says, when he trusts his voice. "Where's Casey? Your room?" He feels Raph's nod, then eases an arm around Splinter's shoulders. "We'll take Splinter there, and Usagi and Mikey. First aid, then — Donnie, where's Angel?"
"I'm here," says a small voice, from the doorway to the lab. "I'm…I…"
Leo's too full of the tides of his anger to hear her voice break, but he feels Donnie hesitate, nothing more than a held breath.
"Angel," says Donnie, and they all turn to look at him, six pairs of eyes on one face. "Where's April?"