"Where's April?" Donnie asks again.
Angel, to her credit, doesn't cringe away from the question. Leo wouldn't blame her if she did — even by his standards, Angel's gone through hell these past few weeks, let alone these past few hours — but she lifts her chin and meets Donnie's eyes, instead of hiding deeper inside April's borrowed hoodie.
April.
Leo chances a quick look in Donnie's direction, not knowing what he's going to find, and not at all reassured when he sees how ramrod-straight Donnie is holding himself, and how tightly Donnie's hands are clenched around his bo. In the silence after Donnie's voice fades away, Leo thinks he can hear the wood creaking under Donnie's fingers. He can't see Donnie's face, and he hates himself for being relieved.
"I'm sorry," Angel whispers. "She's gone. There was a woman, and it grabbed her —"
Donnie inhales, almost too quick to be audible. Angel falters, her gaze slipping down to rest on the rubble spread under her feet. Leo pushes out of his crouch at Splinter's side and makes his way to Angel, fatigue burning through his muscles. He rests a hand gently on her shoulder, not pulling her back when she starts to tug away.
"It's not your fault," he says, for her benefit, and for Donnie's. What Donnie knows intellectually at moments like this — at least as far as April is concerned — has very little to do with what comes out of his mouth, and Leo wants to shield Angel from any shrapnel from Donnie's eventual explosion. She's just a kid.
A kid who hauls her eyes back up to Donnie's, and keeps going, telling the whole ugly story.
It's not a long one; April held off what was left of Stockman until the Boar arrived. Then April — and, god, Leo wants to shake April, to yell in her face about not being too proud to ask for help — April used her new powers against the Boar.
Leo knows there hadn't been time for April to yell for help, even if she had wanted to.
"She hurt it," says Angel, still whispering. "Its face, I think she broke it. But then she was — then she was gone, and the woman just stood there, and then she was gone too. I don't know —" She swallows and rubs her eyes with her fists. "I'm sorry," she says, ending the way she'd begun.
"Leo's right. It's not —" Donnie's voice falters, and he inhales again, as sharply as if he'd been stabbed. Leo watches him from the corner of his eye, ready to ride over Donnie's temper, but his brother just sighs, his head falling low between his shoulders, and he swings his bo back into its holder. "It's not your fault," Donnie says, his voice dull, his eyes duller. "Don't be sorry."
Raph reaches out and lays the flat of his hand on Donnie's shell, but Donnie doesn't move, or react at all. He just breathes slowly, and each breath rings in Leo's ears as loudly as a shout. He doesn't know how much this is costing Donnie, but he knows that this is the heart of Donnie's nightmares. It doesn't matter that the Boar has already played on it once; this isn't something that Donnie will ever be able to guard against. And it doesn't matter how closely Leo tries to shield him — this is the one blow that will always get past their defenses: they failed part of their family, and now she's gone.
"Donnie," says Mikey, his hoarse voice crawling out of a bruised throat. He stands up slowly, and puts his hand on Donnie's shell too.
Without thinking, Leo follows their lead, slipping away from Angel's side and covering the high arch of Donnie's shell with his hand, the thin edge cutting into his palm. There's no comfort he can give for this, beyond standing at Donnie's side and being ready to carry whatever his brother needs, same as he would for Raph or Mikey. But Donnie —
Back when Leo still insisted on seeing the world in black and white, he asked Donnie what he would do, if the solution was April, or the world.
"I've done the math." Donnie finally, finally looks up, eyes dim. "I —"
Leo waits.
"I could do it, Leo." Donnie stands slowly, like an old man, and walks away, leaving Leo kneeling in front of the tree. At the last minute he turns back, his hand on the doorframe, his eyes flat crimson circles in the candlelight. "Just don't expect anything else from me, if it comes down to that."
Leo closes his eyes. He hears Casey limping down the hall and Splinter slowly rising to his feet. None of it matters. What matters is what's always mattered: that they began as four, and they do not leave any one of their brothers behind.
But if this is where Donnie breaks, if this is how Donnie's heart is finally carved out of him, then they're all finished. The Boar was wrong, when it said that they would survive losing Raph. Losing one means losing everything, and Leo can already feel himself diminishing, the awful weight of Donnie's grief spreading through his veins. His own grief is a shadow next to Donnie's, but he loves April too, as a sister and a warrior under his charge, and he can almost feel the ragged edges of the spaces where she used to be.
"It lies," Donnie says, after a long time.
Leo opens his eyes. The first things he sees are Raph and Mikey's hands on Donnie's shell, broad and steady. Then Donnie stands up under their touch, his mouth thin and hard.
"It's done this from the beginning," Donnie goes on, his eyes far away, focused on the dark interior of the lab. "It tricks us, it tries to get us to doubt each other, it plays games with our heads. It might not be true." Leo watches Donnie's eyes close, feels a quick, convulsive gasp lift Donnie's shoulders before he keeps talking. "She might still be alive."
"Donnie," says Leo, softly, his chest aching. He can't say anything else. What right does he have to destroy this tender glimpse of faith, when — and he's not too proud to admit this is pure selfishness — it could keep Donnie with them and fighting, just a little longer?
"I'm going to believe it, till I know," Donnie says, just as softly. "She could still —" He can't finish, just covers his mouth with one hand and then nods. "She's got to be alive," he says, the words so soft the grit of dust underfoot nearly covers them.
Leo hears Donnie speak, but the words ring hollow in his ears. That footstep didn't come from Casey, or Splinter, or even Angel. It's a point of pride that Leo can recognize his family based on how they sound when they breathe, or by how quickly they round a corner, and there is someone else in the lair.
He spins toward the sound, katana flashing as he draws them, and finds himself staring at a grey-robed man, standing just in front of the turnstiles.
"Who —" Leo says, as his brothers unsheathe their weapons — but that's as far as he gets, because Angel chirps in surprise, stumbling back a few steps. And in the same moment, he hears Donnie hiss one word through his teeth.
"You."
The Bull stares placidly at them, its one eye moving slowly over their faces to settle on Donnie. It clasps its hand inside its sleeves, and almost — almost — smiles.
"Donatello," it says, in a resonant, river-slow voice. "You are ready."
Leo turns his head in time to see Donnie's face flash-freeze. Donnie's shell sinks under Leo's hand as he exhales, and doesn't lift again in a new breath. Other than the knife-thin shiver running just under his brother's skin, Leo doesn't feel Donnie moving at all.
Raph and Mikey have gone still, too, at the outer limits of Leo's vision, with Mikey's head lowered like he's ready to charge and Raph's eyes clouded white. Their hands still rest on Donnie's shell, but they're ready for movement, poised on the cusp of action. Of attack.
The rational general in Leo's head — the one who's miles away from all of this, seeing the destruction through a thick, obscuring lens — whispers this is an ally, but Leo ignores the voice. Donnie, his tenacious, brilliant brother, still shakes under his hand, and the general is too far away to feel it, too far away to feel anything.
It's not a general's job to feel. But, Leo thinks, sliding his hand down to squeeze Donnie's shoulder, it is a leader's, and a brother's.
Donnie jolts at the contact, as if he wants to shift away from Leo, and curl himself around whatever's left with April gone, but he inhales — and Leo does too, unaware till that moment he — and Mikey, and Raph, too — was holding his breath right along with Donnie.
Of course we were, he thinks, and looks back at the Bull.
"Ready for what?" Donnie's voice is the dry rasp of stones grinding together. He shakes harder, his breath coming faster, and all Leo can do — all any of them can do — is tighten their grip, and try to keep Donnie from flying apart.
But Donnie's storms will come, no matter how hard Leo tries to anchor him, and Leo feels the howl building in Donnie's chest like a wind coming down from the mountains, weeks of unanswered questions and hopes and now this, the final betrayal: the Bull showing its face only after it could have helped.
"Ready," Donnie says again, without raising his voice, "for what." His hands shift on his bo, his jaw clenches, and still he shakes, staring unblinking at the Bull. "To be the Champion?" His voice rises on the question, the howl surging behind his words, but the second before it breaks, he sucks in another breath and shudders, his whole body wracked by the movement.
And then — then Donnie is silent, and unmoving, the shiver under his skin vanished, as if it had never been there at all.
Control has always been Leo's domain, like unpredictability is Mikey's, and brute force is Raph's. To see Donnie wielding it so ruthlessly, against himself, leaves Leo sick — and yes, in his heart of hearts, envious.
So this is it, he thinks, letting go of Donnie's arm slowly. Why I'm not worthy. Because even now, I'm still wanting what he's got. He'll never stop, but he'll never covet.
Donnie will dream and hope and plan, but he's never been greedy, not on this scale, and Leo's quiet awe is a pale thing next to the weight of his shame.
The half-healed gouges on his arms ache as the Boar's voice curls in his ear: I know what you are, Leonardo.
Shame is Leo's domain, too.
"You have always been that," says the Bull. "This was long-ordained —"
Raph growls, but falls silent, eyes still white, when Leo glares at him. Mikey crowds closer to Donnie, one hand resting at his belt, but doesn't make a sound. Not that Leo expects him to; Mikey's only noisy when he wants to be heard.
"— but you needed to be prepared," finishes the Bull. "The journey is not yet over. Soon, it will be, now that you are ready."
Leo flinches as an unexpected noise grates through the air; it takes him too long to realize that it's Donnie laughing.
The laughter fills the broken lair, just this side of hysterical, without any humor in it at all. Donnie bends at the waist, throwing off his brother's hands as he rocks, breathing in clumsy gasps as he leans on his bo for support.
"Right," Donnie chokes out, still bent over, wiping at his eyes. "Oh, I'm ready." He leans on his bo again, face pressed into the curve of his arm and he laughs, and laughs, and laughs, as if his heart is breaking.
Leo watches, horrified, unsure if he should reach out to Donnie again or back away, far away, from the glassy, fragmented laughter circling them all. Mikey stumbles back, one hand out as if he wanted to brace it against Donnie's shell again, but now he shifts toward Angel, who clutches at his arm with both hands. Splinter wavers on his feet, Usagi looks ill, and Casey turns his face into Raph's shoulder.
"Donnie," Leo forces himself to say, when the laughter finally shatters into uneven, torn breaths. "You —"
"No, Leo." Donnie's voice is grey with exhaustion, shredded from the sharp edges of his laughter. "There's nothing you can say — any of you — that I want to hear. This has been a nightmare from the start. And you —" Donnie glares at the Bull, who stares back, its white half-face unmoving and unyielding — "you come here now, and you say I'm ready, and this whole time you've let me swing —" Donnie swallows, his knuckles knotted thick on his bo. "Where is she?" he asks, as his voice falls to a whisper.
The Bull stares at Donnie, its one eye unblinking. Leo's skin prickles, and his joints ache, but all of that is secondary to the silent war of wills in front of him. Donnie holds the Bull's gaze, his mouth a grim, thin line, and doesn't move.
Leo holds his breath.
"What have you done?" Donnie's throat jumps, once, and then he's motionless again, and still staring at the Bull.
A heartbeat later, and the Bull looks away.
Donnie's eyes close, and the same muscle jumps in his neck again. Leo reaches out — he can't not reach out, not now — but his fingers barely brush Donnie's arm before his brother straightens, his eyes opening dead-white. As Leo's hand curls over Donnie's arm, Donnie lifts his bo, and slides it back into its holder with a bone-deep, weary sigh. He takes a step forward, away from Leo, away from his brothers and his family, and toward the Bull. And Leo lets him go, his fingers sliding off Donnie's arm like water, and deep in Leo's heart, there is still that damned envy, and that damned shame.
"What do I have to do?" asks Donnie.
Donnie expects his walk to the Bull's side to feel years long, or for his feet to drag through the rubble, but it's a short walk, and he steps easily over the stones littering his path.
He expects it to hurt more, to leave his brothers, but once Leo's hand slips from his arm, he only feels a familiar anticipation: now, at least, he can start whatever work is meant for him.
The Bull watches him come with no expression, its hands hidden in its grey, shapeless sleeves. Donnie has plenty of time to watch its face as he climbs the stairs, to commit its bland features to memory. Other than the valley taking up half its head, the Bull is nothing remarkable — just a dour old man, with one gleaming black eye staring back at him. Donnie towers over the Bull — its head barely comes to his shoulders — but he feels like one of his own cell cultures, observed through glassy distance. The old gouges on his legs and feet tingle, the deep wound in his shoulder begins to sting, but it's nothing he can't ignore.
Twenty feet away, Donnie's family watches the Bull watch Donnie. He can sense everyone, but most of all, he's aware of his brothers: Mikey's hesitation, Raph's belligerence, Leo's steady calculation. Pinned between the Bull's gaze, and Leo's, Donnie shivers, and the wound on his shoulder burns.
The Bull lets out a small, satisfied breath.
Just being around it hurt, April said. And then she had touched him, said she was sorry, and then —
Don't think about her. Donnie clenches his teeth, doesn't think of April's face or her hands on the back of his neck, and refuses to ask again, no matter how badly the words want to be spoken.
Where is she? I didn't thank her. I didn't tell her — she can't be gone.
It can't matter. He always knew what he would do, given this choice, and here he is, balancing April against the world. But what he told Leo all those years ago isn't true: he's still ready to keep working, even with her gone.
Of course she's not gone, he tells himself, watching the Bull's impassive face, barely hearing his family shift below him. If she was, the Bull would have said so.
Right?
The Bull shakes one hand loose from its sleeve and points toward the dark tunnel beyond the turnstiles. "Walk with me," it says, its voice every bit as blank as its face. Without waiting for Donnie's response — and how could he say no? — the Bull turns away, its bare feet slapping on the tiles.
Donnie spares one look over his shoulder, and waits for Leo's nod. But it doesn't come, and Leo's face is drawn and tired.
It's wrong and it's cold, walking into the dark without his brothers. But they know, they know, all four of them, that this last step is one Donnie has to take alone, with nothing but his hands, his weapons, and his mind. No one to lead, no one to clear the way, no one to have his back.
Champion, he realizes, is just another word for being alone.
He should tell them he loves them. He should say something, because these are his brothers, and never, not once, have any of them truly been on their own. Donnie can't even imagine the shape they would take if there were just three. There have always been four, but now they're three, and he's just one. Just himself.
His brothers watch him, everyone else faded into the blurred and ruined background, and Donnie tries to find the words — I'll be back, or Don't do anything stupid, or Be safe — but none come. This is an amputation, a chasm no words can cross.
No words need to. After this long, in this life, they don't need to say anything. Mikey tries to smile, Raph blinks fast, and Leo lifts his head in a slight, final nod.
Donnie gives himself ten seconds to memorize their faces, and then he follows the Bull.
The Bull asked Donatello to walk, and so they walk, in silence, the passage of their feet unremarked and silent as they travel the tunnels. If the cold bothers the Champion, he gives no sign; he walks a pace behind the Bull with no complaint, even as their journey takes them through icy, filthy water, and through dank corridors where trains rattle reeking dust from the old walls.
It is a new world, and a dirty one, and the Bull loves it. Every dark street, every forgotten hope, and yes, every petty cruelty, the Bull loves them all, in perfect democracy. There are joys here too, and it delights in them — when a newborn is first cradled close, or when quarrels are mended with peace and not blood — but it is the other side of sweeter efforts it prizes most of all. And why? Why does it love the bitter fruit so?
Because, there are those who keep trying to leave the world a little brighter, and a little cleaner, no matter whether their work is returned with thanks or hate.
It loves the effort and intent as much as it loves the result, and this is something the Boar, in its endless, ravening hunger, can never understand. Their game is old, and while the Boar has never lacked for cunning, it has never placed much weight in wisdom.
That — wisdom, hard-won in blood and a thousand lost worlds — is the Bull's province.
Donatello walks in its footsteps, the wisest choice the Bull has made yet. He is a prize, the finest Champion yet — and the last. If he does not win, there will not be time for another. The Bull has placed all its hopes on his shoulders, and it can only hope they are strong enough to bear what is to come.
The journey is far from over, and what lies next will be the making of this Champion, or his end.
Donatello's pain radiates from him, like heat from a fire. The Bull remembers this kind of pain, this kind of love, but now these things are behind dark, smoked glass, and it cannot touch them.
Each of the Champion's heartbeats stings like a thorn against the Bull's awareness: grief for the woman, her presence still so bright in Donatello's mind; longing for the brothers, familiar and loved since they cracked their eggs.
There are people who are meant to cleave together for a lifetime, or longer. It is simply rare to find so many in one place, like this family built and not made. That family has made Donatello what he is now, and the Bull has made vicious, selfish use of those bonds, straining them to the point of breaking, to push Donatello to this moment: to believe, when all reason for hope is gone.
Faith is a cruel gift.
Out of respect for what Donatello has suffered, and from the knowledge that much of that suffering is from its own design, the Bull breaks the silence first.
"You have questions," it says, over the rush of water. They are drawing close to the docks, where the smell of bodies and their waste is not so strong. Now it smells the far-off scent of the sea that birthed this river, and the oil and rust of the boats floating along it.
A dirty world, yes, but a beautiful one. On the docks, they will be able to see the stars.
"I doubt you'll answer them," Donatello replies, flatly.
The Bull looks back, and finds Donatello's eyes already upon it. He does not recoil at its face, which is good; he does not flinch when it meets his gaze, which is better. Oh, he is strong, tenacious and implacable, a will to split the mountains. Things might have been different, if the Bull had found him a hundred years ago, a thousand, when it was not so tired or so desperate.
Well and so, it has found him now. It will ask if he is ready, and he will say yes, and the last, great battle will begin.
What if he refuses? the Bull thinks, turning back to the tunnel stretching out before it. There is always that chance, though none have refused before.
Ah, it thinks, as its feet splash in a frigid puddle. He is not like the others. They all broke, in the end. They could not help it, and I do not begrudge them. But he will not.
A treasure, truly.
"You could ask," it says.
"I could," Donatello says.
The Bull hears him plant his feet, and pauses mid-step to turn once more and face him. Another creature would use its height to buy authority, but Donatello does not. He does not slouch, and though the Bull knows the old wounds on his legs and shoulder pain him, he does not cringe from the pain.
He will ask about the woman, thinks the Bull, and feels a bitter pang. That answer will doDonatello no good, though the Bull is prepared to give wants to ask it; the question weighs heavy on his tongue, but as the Bull watches him, he swallows it, like a hot coal.
"What do I have to do?" he asks again.
Surprise is a precious thing, the last pure delight the Bull can name, and it nearly laughs.
Donatello would raise the question himself, that damned need to know driving him, even now.
"For now," says the Bull, so pleased it is hard-pressed not to smile, "I would like to keep walking. We are not there yet."
"Where are we —" Donatello catches himself, hovers on the edge of asking, then nods. "Just...lead the way," he says, his eyes glittering in the near-dark.
The Bull does smile, then, though its face is shrouded and Donatello cannot see. The last lesson
has been learned, the one needful piece of armor: to believe. To have faith, where before there was only reason and fact.
Donatello is truly ready. And that bitter pang turns sharp as steel, piercing the last of the Bull's heart, for how it must reward that faith. Still: there is more to balance than one life, or a thousand. If the Boar is not stopped, this world will fall between its teeth, and then nothing will stand in its way.
The Bull has always paid in lives. It cannot change its currency now.
Another hour passes before they reach the docks. Donatello makes a muffled noise of surprise when the Bull climbs to the surface, then hisses as a chill wind cuts into him. The Bull notices the cold, though it is not bothered by it — but a distant scrap of memory twists, far below the ice-locked surface of its memory: breath steaming in the freezing air, a warm hand covering its nose, resting on its neck, and a deep voice saying let's go home. Then warmth, the sweet taste of oats, and laughter, in many voices.
It had not always been this, and the shape it wears is only an illusion. Once, it had been a bull, broad-chested and strong, its horns tipped with iron, and it had traded that certainty for power.
It cannot remember why.
"So," says Donatello, drawing the Bull back to the present. "Why here?" Out on the river, a freighter passes, water frothing at its side. He does not look at the building looming behind them, where the Boar made its first open move, and traded one of its knights for Donatello's queen.
Another pang, for the woman this time. The Bull watches the water, and asks its question.
"Will you serve?" it asks, without looking at Donatello. This is what the stories have chosen not to tell: the Bull always asks, and it has never been refused. It has been far too efficient at demonstrating the cost, and its Champions may falter, but they never turn away.
Donatello makes a rough noise that the Bull realizes, belatedly, is a laugh of supreme derision. "I thought that was obvious," he says, shivering. "So, again: what do I have to do?"
"For now?" answers the Bull, its slow, ancient heart beginning to beat faster. It can taste something sweet and overripe in the chill air; after a moment, it realizes that it is hope. "I want you to believe. To listen. To repair what is broken, if only for a time."
Donatello laughs again, and startles when the Bull places its hand on his shoulder. Its thumb rests precisely on the old gouge, and the Bull knows its proximity pains him. "That's it?" he says. "I just stand here, and…fix what, exactly?"
"Not here." The taste is stronger now, spreading over every part of the Bull's tongue. If any can do this impossible thing, if any can win, it is Donatello, with this new, bitter faith and his damned, yearning heart. "I am sorry," it adds. "You will not enjoy this."
It pushes Donatello over the edge of the dock, into the water. The way opens beneath the waves, a flash of white light so pure it washes all color from the water and the buildings, and swallows the Bull's Champion before he has a chance to cry out.
The Bull blinks away the light, and feels the way close with a soft sigh. No doubt the Boar felt that, and knew what it signified — but it will not be worried. No, the Boar does not worry, and its teeth are already sunk deep into that other, broken world. The dying world, all ash and sorrow, with no hope to light its weary dawns.
Will Donatello be that light? The Bull will discover for itself soon enough. Its choice and its methods are cruel, but they are still wise, and Donatello the wisest choice of them all.
Wisest but for one, it thinks, and smiles up at the stars.
Elsewhen.
Raphael reaches up to scratch the skin at the edge of his eyepatch, then catches Casey's sharp look and drops his hand with a sigh. "Seriously, Case?" he asks, hooking his thumb in his jacket pocket, where it can't get into any trouble. "You're gonna give me shit about this?"
"Sure am." Casey slings his shotgun over his shoulder and shrugs. "Come on, man, you know the deal. Doc said no itching."
"Doc's full of shit," Raphael grumbles, but keeps his hands where they're at. Doc may be full of shit, and a boozer, but she did manage to save one of Raphael's eyes. "Didn't she used to be a vet?"
Casey raises his eyebrows, but doesn't say anything. Raphael sighs, and tries to ignore the itching as they walk down the sidewalk.
They're ten miles out from the spire, so they don't have to worry too much about cover unless one of the airships goes by overhead — and those are loud enough that there's always plenty of time to make it into the shadow of a bombed-out building or pile-up. Shredder gave up on the whole ninjas are supposed to be quiet thing years ago.
At the next intersection, Alice swings into view, with Mike a half-step behind. Raphael still can't get over the way Mike's left sleeve hangs empty, waving in the cold wind, even though it's been a good fifteen years since Mike lost the arm. By the way Mike's eyes linger on his face, Raphael figures Mike feels the same way about his eye.
"Anything?" he asks, already knowing the answer.
"Nothing but this," says Alice, digging in the pocket of her jeans. She tosses a dusty white tube at Raphael, and gives him a crooked grin. "Thought you might need that."
"Analgesic cream — don't even think about it, Casey," Raphael says, reading the tube and shoving Casey's shoulder with his own. "Got enough to deal with, your puns can go to hell."
"Loser," Casey says, shoving him back and grinning. "Good one, kiddo."
Alice turns her grin on Casey. "Yeah, well. I've got to earn my keep around here somehow, right? Mike's the pretty one, so I'm useful."
"Aw, you're gorgeous," says Mike, right on cue, throwing his arm around Alice's shoulders. She almost laughs, leaning into the hug, and a thick knot of tension in Raphael's gut loosens. She looks good, Alice, alert and clear-eyed, like that run-in with Karai a few weeks back never happened. Leonardo had fought like hell to keep her benched, but with Casey, Mike, and Raphael all arguing for it, he had to give in.
Besides — Alice had been right. They didn't have enough people left to keep anyone on the bench.
"Looks like we've cleaned out this neighborhood," says Raphael, reluctant to break up the moment, but knowing they were daring this little scrap of good luck to turn to shit if they stayed outside any longer than they had to. "Let's head home."
"Maybe there'll be dinner left," Alice says, musingly, and takes point, her police baton swinging at her belt, and her .45 in her left hand. Raphael watches her toss her braid back over her shoulder, and realizes there are grey streaks in the red, under the grime.
Even the kiddo's getting old, he thinks, and swallows hard. Casey leans into him, eyes warm and worried, and Mike claps him on the shoulder. Raphael waves them away, pissed with himself for getting all emotional over reality and pissed with them for noticing, and stalks off to catch up with Alice.
Maybe it's from being on his own for so long, with no one to watch his back, but Mike's the one who hears the noise first. He grabs Raphael's arm and drags him back before he turns a corner, then yanks Alice back, so silent it's spooky.
"What —" Raphael hisses, but Mike shakes his head and points to his ear, then around the corner.
Something's moving in the rubble. Someone's coughing.
Shit. Raphael waves Alice back with Casey, then presses his shell against the building wall. Mike shoves close to his side, eyes already white, and nods. Raphael counts to three, long enough for the adrenaline to hit his bloodstream and to unsheathe his sai, and then they round the corner, their feet hitting the pavement in unison. Kill first, figure it out later. That's the new game.
Mike heard it first, and Mike stumbles first, when the person in the rubble lifts their head and stares at them, wild-eyed. Raphael makes it another two steps before he fumbles, his brain shorting out and his heart forgetting to beat and he can't hear anything except Mike whispering no no no no no no no at his side.
"No," says Raph, dropping to one knee. "No."
The person stands up, his arms and legs nine miles long and — and it's not right, it wasn't supposed to be like this, they got old and they fell apart and —
Not like this. Not when the world's about to end.
"Donnie?" says Mike, his voice breaking. "Is that —"
Is that you? Raphael thinks, like a punch to the gut, as Donnie takes a shaky step toward them.
One look is all Raphael needs to know it's not the Donnie they lost. This one's too young, without any of the scars the war left on their Donnie before the war took him. And this one looks like he actually knows what sleep and food are, instead of being all grey and worn-out at the edges.
It's not Raphael's brother. But for a few seconds, it might have been, and coming back to real life after that one flash of hope makes Raphael's spine feel like it's crumbling. He grabs at the collar of his jacket, gasping; all the air's gone out of the world and he can't breathe, he's choking.
Mike's hand fists in his sleeve and pulls him close. They lean on each other like drunks, breathing hard, as the wrong Donnie stumbles toward them.
"Raph?" he says, brown eyes wide, and goddamn it, he's too young but he sounds right, and Raphael still can't breathe. "Mikey? What — your arm, Mikey, what happened?"
A laugh explodes out of Raphael, all crazy and jagged, and he slaps a hand over his mouth to hold it in. No one's called Mike Mikey in years, and the last person to call him Raph —
— had been Donnie.
"What happened to you?" Donnie asks, his hands held up like he wants to help, like he's ready to fix them, and he sounds so good, still a snotty know-it-all, and oh, god, Raphael had missed that.
He staggers to his feet, shrugging out of Mike's grip, and makes his way over the broken street to Donnie.
It's not Donnie, he tells himself. Don't fall for it, it's just another trick.
Trick or not, it's been twenty years, and Raphael is tired. They didn't even have a body to bury.
"Donnie?" he asks, and stops when the insane laughter bubbles up his throat again. Dammit, Donnie.
"Get away from him, Raphael."
Alice's voice is steel honed to a razor-blue edge. Raphael jolts away from Donnie, reeling, and catches a glimpse of Donnie's face twisting, all confused hurt, before he turns back to face Alice.
She's got her gun leveled at Donnie's face, and her hands aren't shaking.
This isn't a repeat of the run-in with Karai; then, Alice had started screaming, started running toward Karai, firing without aiming, and it took Casey and Raphael to drag her back home.
Raphael had thought that was the worst the Shredder could do to Alice, showing off the woman who killed her mother, but no, this is much worse — the moment of hope, and then the crash back into the truth.
"Wait a second, kiddo," he says, hands up like he's the one she's aiming at. "We need to —"
"You need to get away from him," she says, not blinking. "He's not —" She shivers, but her aim doesn't waver. "He's a trick," she says, a few seconds later. "It's a fucking trick. He's dead."
"Oh, Alice," says Mike. He pushes up slowly. "It might —"
"Shut up!" she screams. Her voice rings off the hollow buildings, throwing up a dozen echoes. Two hot blotches of red flood her cheeks. "Just — shut up! He's not real! It's the Boar!" She gasps, and Raphael sees her finger shift toward the trigger.
He leaps forward and grabs her wrist just before she fires, the shot going wild into the air and startling a flock of pigeons off the roof — the last pigeons in New York, he thinks, ears ringing from the shot.
"You want us to get killed?" he hisses, squeezing her wrist till the gun falls from her loose fingers.
Alice glares at him, teeth bared. "I want him dead," she hisses back. "You guys want to die over this, that's your call. Not me." Her mouth trembles. "He died, Raphael," she says, just for his ears. "My dad is dead."
"I know." Raphael picks up the gun, holds it like it'll bite him. "Kiddo, I know."
"Then how —" Alice swallows, and closes her eyes. "No." She's pulled out of Raph's grip before he knows what she's doing, with all of April's speed, and she slams past Mike, straight at the bewildered Donnie who's still blinking at all of them.
She gets in one good hit with her baton, right on the side of Donnie's head, before Mike and Raphael pull her off. And Donnie just takes it, falling to his knees like he's been expecting the blow from the beginning.
"You dumbass!" Raphael yells. "You really are gonna get us killed — Casey, Mike, get her back to the compound, Leonardo can deal with her."
Alice laughs, jeering and cold. "Yeah, send me back to Leonardo, let him deal with my shit." She laughs again, and shakes off Mike's arm. "Don't come near me," she spits at Donnie, and turns away, stalking through the rubble with her head high.
With a backward glance at Raphael, Mike and Casey follow her, weapons out. Who knows what the shot and all that yelling stirred up?
Nothing good.
Raphael turns back to where Donnie's still kneeling in the rubble, one hand rubbing his head, his eyes dazed and far away. "What the hell?" he whispers. "What are you…who are you?"
Donnie looks up, and gives Raphael a crooked smile that chills him, straight to his heart. "I'm just Donnie," he says, and coughs into the crook of his arm. "The Bull sent me."