March 31st.

The last thing anyone's going to accuse Raph of is being nice, and he's never felt bad about it till now. He grabs Casey's shoulder again — third time's a charm, right? — and tries to pull him back down the stairs, but Casey's a quick little shit when he wants to be and he's in Leo's face before Raph can stop him.

"You're not benchin' me!" Casey yells. He jabs a finger at Leo's face, spitting every word. "You've done some dumbass things before, but this really takes it."

Leo goes blank, which is usually enough of a warning, even for Raph, but Casey keeps yelling.

"— so you can take this big plan of yours and shove it up your green ass!"

"This isn't open for debate." Leo steers around Casey without a second look. "Raph, Mikey, with me. We've got work to do in the lab."

"Don't walk away!" Casey shouts, as Usagi calls after Leo, his voice taut. "Raph, back me up!"

This must be that classic no-win scenario Donnie's always talking about. Raph shuts down that line of thought fast as he can, and rubs his face. He's got no idea what to say to get Casey on board, but he tries. For all of two seconds he tries, while Casey watches him, eyes hot and furious, and then Casey throws up his hands and stalks away.

"It's bullshit," he says as he goes.

Raph spins after him — Leo can deal without him for five minutes, because this is the last chance he's got to try and fix this — and catches Usagi's look on the way. Usagi's better at keeping his crap locked down than anyone except Leo, but he can't hide the way he just got gut-punched.

Raph doesn't blame him. The guy hauled his furry ass all the way to their universe to help out, and now he's benched over a couple burns. It's got to suck, even if Usagi'll never say so.

It's not just the burns. Raph's not nice, and Raph's no genius, but he knows all about collateral damage. The Boar's going to make its payback as personal as possible.

When'd you figure that out? He tosses what he hopes is an apologetic look over his shoulder at Usagi as he follows Casey. Was it before or after the alley full of dead bodies?

Like it matters.

Usagi's smart. He doesn't like Leo's plan, but liking it isn't as important as him falling in line. Raph doesn't need to worry about him, or Splinter, who looks like a bomb just went off two feet from his head, or Angel, who's clearly having the worst and weirdest day of her life.

Which is a good thing, because the door to his room just slammed and locked.

"Raph!" Mikey yells from the door of the lab. "C'mon!"

"In a minute!" A sour wave of guilt hits him as he jogs past Splinter without saying a word, but it passes quick. Maybe that makes him an asshole, but he's only got a few minutes left. Patching things up with Casey take priority. Besides, Mikey's got the whole nice thing on lockdown, when he wants to. He can explain it to Splinter.

The lock on his door's been broken for two years now. It makes a lot of noise and if you're not trying too hard, it feels locked, but a hard twist and shove are all it takes to open the door. Casey doesn't look up when Raph walks in, just keeps sitting on the bed with his head in his hands.

"Come on, My Chemical Romance." Raph knows he's landed about two states away from sounding normal, but Casey snorts and rolls his head in Raph's direction. "You know why Leo's doing this. Don't be a dick about it."

"You'd be a dick if it were you," Casey shoots back, but he's too tired to give it much heat.

It's easy sometimes for Raph to forget that Casey's just human, not actually as mystical and badass as he always says he is. Most the time, Casey's up half a second after he gets knocked down, yelling about how metal it was and how he's so pumped. Tonight he tried, but he spent weeks on the bench before having those freak dogs chew their way out of him, and that's not counting all the chewing they did the first go-around in April's apartment.

Feels like a thousand years ago. Raph kicks the door shut on Mikey's voice, and sinks down on the bed next to Casey. It's not like he'd be any help in the lab unless he's on clean-up, and that can wait.

"Talk to Leo," Casey says, rubbing his side. "Yeah, it's bad, but you know me. Give it a day, two days. I'll be good to go."

Leo doesn't have the juice for a real argument right now. It'd be as simple as Hey, Leo, you know Casey's basically a mutant too, right? I mean, how else do you explain his face? We're gonna need the firepower. Let him stay.

He's not nice and he's never going to be, but Raph's never going to be enough of a selfish asshole to ask Casey to die with him.

"It's gonna be bad, Case," he says. Casey's sigh shakes the whole bed. "Don't fight Leo on this one, okay?"

Casey snorts another laugh that isn't really a laugh at all. "We've had bad before," he says. "Real bad. We didn't split up. What's your big rule? No turtle left behind? Doesn't this count?"

Any other night, with anyone else, Raph would serve up a big helping of tough love and tell them to deal with it, but the way Leo looked when he turned back to the fire - there's no coming back from this. He's got to make these last few minutes count.

"Not this time," he says, staring at his feet and Casey's. "Just…do it, okay?" He swallows, shuts his eyes for a moment, and wishes he'd known before they got to the old Foot HQ the night was going to end like this. Maybe he'd have been able to figure out what to say. "I don't want…"

Casey leans into him and sighs.

Raph leans back, and finds his voice again. "Don't be a dick about this," he says, stepping on Casey's foot, "and maybe I'll save some of those dogs for you." He grins when Casey laughs, really laughs, and leans into him harder.

"Deal, babe," Casey says, shoving Raph and kicking him in the leg.

"Don't call me babe," Raph tells him, on reflex, and leans his forehead against Casey's.

Leo looks up when Raph and Casey walk into the lab, face expressionless till Raph gives him a little nod. Then Leo straightens and shuts the notebook in front of him. "We lucked out," he says. "Donnie wrote his notes in English, for once, and the power cell's not damaged. We're ready to go."

Raph's eyes slide toward the portal. He bumps Casey's shoulder, but Casey doesn't respond right away. He's staring at the portal too, eyes a little glassy and his mouth set in a hard line.

Leo gives them another blank glance, then turns away to talk to Usagi and Splinter. Mikey's whispering to Angel on the other side of the lair, one arm around her shoulders while she chews on the cuff of her hoodie. She's smiling, but she's got that same glassy look as Casey.

Collateral damage, Raph thinks.

"This is still bullshit," Casey mutters. He scuffs his feet along the dirty floor. "Smells like shit in here, too."

Right. They haven't cleaned up what's left of Stockman. Before they leave, Raph'll take care of that. Stockman was useless, and an idiot, and a bad guy, but he deserved better, same as Fishface. He deserves to be laid to rest, at least.

He'll think about that later.

"Casey." He's got to say something. It's now or never, and his heart keeps pounding but his brain just won't work, it won't give him the words. "I just want to…"

"You said you'd save me some," Casey interrupts, holding his side again. "Don't forget, or I'm gonna be pissed. I'm gonna beat the sparkly green shit out of them. Payback for using me for a chewtoy."

Raph nods, holds Casey's eyes. It's good, being this defiant. Raph will go fight with his brothers, and when it's done, Casey and everyone else will come home. And Raph can bust Donnie's shell for leaving them to do all the hard work, and April will —

The thought dies before he can finish it, and then there's just Casey, watching him with the saddest, dumbest smile Raph's ever seen.

"It's time," Leo says.

Casey's shoulders slump. "Just remember," he whispers to Raph, as Mikey punches in the activation code. The portal's roar drowns out anything Raph wants to say, so he settles for grabbing Casey's shoulder one last time.

He expects Mikey to get a little teary, at least, but everyone looks as numb as he feels. Angel doesn't even blink while she gives him the world's most awkward hug, but Raph can ignore how crappy it feels to ruin her life just a little bit more. What he can't handle is Usagi's death grip on Leo's hand, and how gentle Leo is as he peels Usagi's fingers away.

Then there's Splinter, who's never been the huggy type, even when Raph and his brothers were little. The end of the world doesn't change that. They all get a warm hand on their shoulders, and Splinter tries to say something big and inspiring, but then he just defaults to "Good hunting, my sons."

Raph nearly says Splinter's got it the wrong way around, because they're not doing any hunting. But what'd be the point? He can try to be nice, now that it's all ending.

He gives Splinter a smile he hopes is all brave and steady, but it doesn't fit his face, and Splinter closes his eyes.

"Be safe," Splinter whispers, and now it's Raph's turn to look away.

Sure, totally. Raph thinks, watching Casey head toward the portal. At the last minute, Casey turns around, and Raph gets to watch the cold light close around him.

Quick goodbyes are supposed to be clean. Like surgery. So why does every mouthful of air have to feel like he's breathing through gravel?

Mikey shuts the portal down, blinking fast, and then runs his hand over his face. There's a beat of silence, the only sound something beeping deep in the lab, and then Leo opens his mouth.

"Tear it down," he says, to Raph and Mikey. "Grab the power cell first, then pull it to pieces."

"Leo," Mikey says, eyes wide. "Do we —"

"We're taking no chances," Leo replies. "Nothing the Boar can use."

"What about Donnie's notes?" Raph asks, dragging the words through a cold throat. It's not like the Boar needs portals, so what's the point of wrecking all Donnie's hard work? Can't they just pretend for thirty seconds they're not already dead?

It's better to be sure. Plan for the worst, expect the worst: the Hamato family motto.

Leo's throat bobs as he swallows. "Burn them," he says. "Burn it all. We move in five minutes."

The warhound to Karai's left lifts its head and growls, low enough to be camouflaged by the light breeze. Someone behind her sobs, and a few feet away, Slash starts out of his doze.

"They're on the move," he mutters, jerking his massive head to the south.

Karai watches three half-shadows dart away across a rooftop. From this distance, all she can make out are vague shapes, but she knows Leo is the one who turns before they slip out of sight. A flash of milk-white eyes, and then he's gone, vanished into the wide hunting ground of the city.

He's as pathetically easy to track as he was ten years ago, back when she had place, and respect, and power. But she's under Slash's command, and she can't move without his permission.

I preferred being eaten, she thinks, still staring after Leo. Every bite mark on her skin is a fiery crescent, but she'll take the pain and savor it, if it means being free of the freak's authority.

The Boar's creative in its way, she muses grimly.

"What d'you say?" Slash scratches his neck, then rattles the door of the cage just to hear the people inside scream. The warhounds swarm against his legs, panting and grinning. "Let 'em run for a while, then get 'em when they're tired? Or just take 'em down now?"

Slash will do the opposite of whatever she says, just to make sure she doesn't forget who's in charge.

Karai grits her teeth against the urge to tell him to go fuck himself; making him shut up for a few seconds isn't worth whatever petty humiliation the Boar would come up with next.

It's not like her input will make Leo and his brothers any less dead.

"No opinion?" Slash hunches down so he can shove his face close to hers. "Aw, come on, princess, you still got a tongue in there, use it. Never know when it might be your last chance."

His breath is a hot, charnel reek, and there's a long, red-tinged moment where all Karai can think about is why his breath smells like that — but a lifetime of discipline reasserts itself, and she blinks the red fog away to focus past Slash, toward Leo as he runs for his life.

Slash grunts, clearly annoyed at not getting a reaction, and lumbers back to his feet. In the quiet inside her skull, Karai gives herself a second to enjoy thwarting him. Petty victories are all she has left, but there's something to be said for enjoying the little things.

I've dealt with worse than a bully with bad breath.

"Nah, we'll let 'em run," Slash says reasonably, like Karai actually made a case. "They'll get tired, and then they'll get careless. Then we hit 'em with our little surprise, and while they're freaking out, that…"

He pauses, head thrown back. Karai doesn't miss how he glances at her from the corner of his eye, gauging her reaction, and so she doesn't give him one. She keeps her hands still on her thighs, and faces forward.

"That," Slash finishes, "is when we make the offer."

Karai snaps her head around to face Slash, realizing what she's doing a nanosecond too late to stop. Slash stares down at her, not smiling now, but radiating enough smug cheer to light up half the city. You didn't know? his expression says. Poor little Karai, out of the loop.

She inhales slowly, smelling dirt and old blood and a hint of rain. "Which one?" she asks, because she's already given herself away, and she might as well get what she can from Slash while he's distracted by pride. "Who gets the offer?"

"Now that the Champion's not here?" Slash lets out a dark, rough chuckle. "You worried it's gonna be your little boyfriend?"

All the things Slash could have said to hurt her, and he picked that one. Even Stockman could have cut deeper. Karai shrugs, not letting the pain show on her face when her bad shoulder screams, and lets herself enjoy another flash of satisfaction when Slash's malicious cheer dims. "I'm not worried," she says. The breeze sharpens, and drives a few drops of freezing rain over the roof. Karai holds out her hand, listening for Slash to shuffle closer, waiting for him to ask why.

You lack subtlety, she thinks at him as she rubs her thumb and forefinger together. You can't use it, so you don't see it.

"Yeah?" Slash says. "Wanna share why with the class, princess?"

Not a princess, asshole. Karai steels herself not to show her hot burst of anger. A general. That's what I was.

That's not quite right; she hadn't been a general yet, but she had been —

A queen, Leo called her, a lovesick little puppy.

A brittle spasm twists beneath her breastbone. Stupid, honorable Leo, with all his dreams of saving her and loving her, and he never understood how she could love power for its own sake. He never knew how it felt to stand with his foot on someone else's neck, just because he could.

And now he's running, his life measured in hours.

The spasm clenches again, fiercer this time. For all that Leo never understood her, he understands honor, and so does Karai. Honor is what made her warn him, back when running might have done some good.

And honor might make him say yes, for the chance to buy his brothers a little more time. It won't work, but Leo will cling to the thinnest hope — and all his intricate layers of shame and righteousness and loyalty will be nothing more than the Boar's next meal. One more truth Karai knows as well as her own skin. What's left of it.

No, it can't be Leo. It has to be someone who can say no when the world calls for their help. Someone...immediate.

She's been out of the game for too long; her mind's too slow to make the connections that used to come so easily. Seven years ago, she could have torn the Foot Clan apart from the inside with nothing more than a well-placed cough and three words to the right person.

Times change. The kingdom that should have been hers burned twice, and she's little better than a slave.

But she's been paying attention all these years, and sometimes — sometimes — winning can be just as much of a weakness as caring. If you take it for granted, you forget how to adapt.

And once that happens, even a slave can rise again.

She coughs, and waits till Slash glances down at her.

"Ask Raph instead," Karai says.

Slash's eyes glitter. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah. Good old Raph."

Karai's chest throbs, steady and relentless, almost a heartbeat.

April 3rd.

Running is hell. Actual, literal hell. Raph liked to bitch about Donnie and Leo's deep, weird love for marathon runs across the city, but those were four, five hours long, tops. When they were done, he could look forward to a hot shower and some food that wasn't scavenged out of a dumpster. He could sleep, and yeah, he might be sore the next morning, but being sore meant he got to stop.

Leo keeps them away from all their boltholes — not just Manhattan, they could go to Yonkers and still have a place to crash — and doesn't let Raph and Mikey in on the route he's got planned in his head.

It hits Raph at the end of the first day: Leo's running blind, looping back until Raph's sick of seeing the same four blocks, then shooting off in a straight line for two miles. His instinct screams to stand and fight, but he knows better than to say so. Maybe running will give them enough time to figure out a plan.

Maybe Donnie'll magically show up with the spear.

Yeah, right.

They only stop when someone's about to puke from exhaustion. Raph's glad Mikey's the one who starts wheezing, but then he realizes Mikey's carrying all the food, and he feels crappier than he thought possible. He's just got the spare weapons and a first aid kit to worry about.

So while Mikey and Leo catnap under a water tower, Raph reorganizes their packs. He barely dozes when it's his turn, and he's just started to really fall asleep when Leo shakes him, and it's time to start running again.

Three days of running, and hiding, and running again. There's no sign of the Boar. The streets are louder at night, now that the weather's remembered it's springtime and people aren't running to get out of the cold, but that means it's harder to make out which sounds belong, and which don't. Raph listens when he's running, when he's on watch, when he's sleeping — and for what? For the Boar to come slobbering up the fire escape? Or for Slash?

They might not hear Slash unless he wanted them to hear. Donnie hadn't, the first time.

Yeah, well, Donnie's gone, so what does it matter? Raph pricks his finger with his sai. He needs to stretch so he doesn't cramp up, but he's too tired to move. That little pain in his finger is the only thing keeping him awake. Leo and Mikey are dark bundles a few feet away, dead to the world. It'd feel so good to lie down on Mikey's other side, get wrapped up in a blanket, and just pass out. Two hours is all Raph'd need. Not so much, when you think about it. And who's gonna come looking up here? The building they're hiding out in is abandoned, like half the buildings on this side of the block. Plus, it's broad daylight. If the Boar comes swanning down the road, someone's gonna notice.

Raph yawns and pricks his finger again. It's a losing battle. Leo can yell all he wants about falling asleep on watch, but right now, Raph needs to sleep. He's never been this tired in his life. Just two hours.

His head drops between his shoulders. Raph sits up, startled and grunting, jerked awake for a couple seconds. He's not gonna fall asleep. His turn's coming.

I'm just so tired. He glares at Leo and Mikey. Why does he always had to take first watch? So what if Leo's taking the middle watch? He's not first. No, that had to be Raph — Leo just had to throw his weight around even now, had to be the fearless leader even though there's barely anyone left to lead. And who's fault is that? Who sent everyone away? Who sent Casey away? Casey would have been fine, but Leo didn't want to listen.

Raph's hand goes loose on the hilt of his sai as he sinks, down and down — but the point of his sai slips, and digs into the softer skin between his fingers. He hisses as the pain drags him back up into the musty daylight.

Raph's tired, but he's not that tired. And he's pissed, but he's not pissed at Leo.

"Oh, crap," he says, wide awake now. He scans what he can see of the rooftop, but there's no movement, no sound except his breathing. "Guys, get up, we gotta move."

Leo and Mikey don't wake up when he shakes them. They just keep dreaming.

"Guys, come on." What can he do? He can't carry them both, no matter what's coming. They've got to wake up.

He's shaking Mikey with both hands when he hears a footstep on the gravel. Ten feet away, tops, no way to tell who or what it is.

But he knows, even before he hears Slash say, "Can Raphael come out and play?"

Raph lets go of Mikey's shoulders. Mikey's face is slack and empty — but he's still breathing, and so is Leo. That's something.

He crawls out of the tower's shadow, blinking in the sunlight, and finds Slash leaning on the maintenance shed, lazily smiling at him.

"Slash." He slots his sai back into its holder, and waits. Slash can move scary-fast, but Raph's pretty sure the Boar didn't keep up with Slash's training over the past ten years — he may be fast, but Raph is faster. Raph is better.

Sure about that? snots a little voice, deep down in his head. Hope you're ready to find out.

"We didn't get much of a chance to talk last time." Slash picks at a scab on his arm. "I figured, now's as good a time as any to catch up."

"Let them go," Raph hisses. "And maybe I won't pound you into jello."

Slash looks up, eyes almost hurt. Raph starts to think, Spike?, before he catches himself. There's nothing left of Spike, the little guy who trusted Raph would always take care of him. Or if there is, it's just something Slash wears to get what he wants. "You think I came here to fight?" he asks, fingers still picking at the scab. "Raphael, don't you —"

"You've got nothing I wanna hear!" Raph yells. He pulls his sai free, and takes a few steps toward Slash before he stops himself. He's got to stay calm, because calm means control and he's not letting Slash run this showdown. "So go back to your boss — no, wait, your owner —"

That gets Slash's attention. His hand drops from the scab and his eyes go blank. Raph waits for Slash to rush him, ready to pivot at the last second to aim Slash away from the water tower, but Slash blows a sharp breath through his nose and grins.

"Funny you should mention my boss," Slash says. Raph feels a red pulse start behind his eyes, and reminds himself to keep his knees loose, in case he needs to move. "It's got an offer for you, Raphael. Hear me out."

"Hear you out?" Raph laughs, half-listening behind him for any new noises. Nothing. "What part of you've got nothing I wanna hear didn't you understand?"

The heaping pile of screw you in Raph's voice doesn't bother Slash at all. He shrugs away from the maintenance shed, dusting off hands the size of garbage can lids. "I told my boss we'd underestimated you," Slash says. "Figured you'd just fall in with whatever Fearless back there says. Stick with the family no matter what."

He jerks his head at the water tower, smiling as Raph's stomach plummets. All those hours complaining about Leo to Spike, about how Leo didn't get it and never would, they're all being distilled into this moment, where the ugly heart of Raph's doubts and envy grins down at him. Spike listened, and Slash remembers.

"But you don't have to!" Slash keeps smiling, like Raph's done something to be proud of. "Big surprise for my boss there, when I told them that. Big surprise. And they don't get a lot of those. So, they're interested."

"In what?" Raph's voice is dry as sandpaper, and twice as rough on his throat.

"You." Slash's smile falls away. "They see potential in you, Raphael. You're not a loser. You're strong. Always have been. The Boar could use that."

Slash's argument hasn't changed in ten years. "Pass," Raph says. "I'm right where I need to be."

"No, you're not." Slash jerks his head at the water tower again. "You really think they need you? They don't understand strength, not like we do. Sure, they're good, but they didn't take me down. You did. Because you get it. Always have, just like me."

"Answer's no," Raph snaps. It sounds too true — his brothers don't need him, don't understand him — but even if it is true, he's still the only thing standing between them and Slash. "You got nothing I want."

Slash shakes his head. "I was afraid you'd say that, Raphael." He sighs, and god, it's almost like he's disappointed. "I really didn't want to have to do this, but, boss's orders. You know how it is."

Raph's not going to give him a second's warning. Why waste time? Someone needs a beatdown, it's as simple as that. Maybe, when he puts Slash down, Leo and Mikey'll wake up — but he can't waste time thinking about that either.

He drops into a crouch. Slash is fast as long as he's moving in a straight line, but he's weak at the flanks. Come in hard and fast from the left, and aim for the eyes.

Before Raph can take his first step, Slash lifts his head and sniffs the air. "Right on time," he says, grinning down at Raph. "You'll wanna see this."

Raph doesn't care, he's gonna hamstring Slash and definitely not ask questions later, but a scream, thin and wavering, hits his ears.

Slash smiles wider.

The scream keeps coming, spiraling higher and higher until it breaks like a piece of old wood, and whoever's making all that noise starts to cry. No, they start to beg.

Let us go please you don't have to do this just let us go

"That was a pretty big fire you guys set," says Slash casually, sidling up to Raph's side. "You know what big fires mean? Lots of firemen."

You don't have to do this please

Raph chokes on his next breath. It can't be what he thinks it is.

"Not so many now," Slash adds, right in Raph's ear. "The boss gets hungry. But there's enough left over to start a whole new garden. Or a fire. Lots of choices today."

Please

Raph steps to the edge of the roof. It's easy to spot Karai, slump-shouldered, and easier to spot the warhounds circling her, panting and impatient, but it's the cage behind her that draws Raph's eye.

Karai looks toward the roof, but she's too far away for Raph to make out her expression. Someone in one of the apartments down below starts shouting, and the warhounds move like a wave toward the sound.

"Always gonna be a trade-off, Raphael." Slash backs toward the water tower. Raph spins after him, unable to think past the choice unfolding in front of him, and watches Slash slam a meaty fist into one of the water tower's struts. The wood groans, and starts to splinter. "So, what's it gonna be?"

The strut cracks straight across. Thousands of gallons of water hanging over Leo and Mikey's heads, and they still don't wake up.

The first delayed burst of panic hits Raph's brain. He can't do this, he can't see a way out. Leo and Mikey, or a bunch of people who got caught because of something he did.

The spell starts to crumble away from Leo and Mikey when Slash hits the second strut. They're not moving fast enough, just turning over and grumbling. They have no idea.

"Hey Karai!" bellows Slash. "Let's get it started! Looks like Raphael's made up his mind." He grins at Raph, a dare, a challenge. "Or are you gonna surprise us and play hero?"

Raph thinks of the cage and the people crying in the street, and then blinks his third lid down. He wishes he could make the right choice, the one Leo would want him to make, but he can't. "Nope," he says, and rushes Slash without another thought.

Nothing quite like waking up and feeling like you've been kicked off a three-story building. Which is not a sentence or an experience most people would understand, but April's never been most people.

She keeps her eyes shut while she assesses the damage. Breathing hurts, so she's probably broken — rebroken, really — a rib or two, but at least she can breathe. Her heart rate's steady. A dull throb takes up the back of her skull, promising to evolve into a truly evil headache if she opens her eyes.

But her mind sprawls outward, curious tendrils exploring the world around her, and the power that tore the Boar's face apart rises when she reaches toward it. Good signs, and even the headache means she's alive to feel it, so she can leave panicking or fighting for her life out of her immediate plans, but —

April doesn't know where she is, but it sure as hell isn't Donnie's lab. If she were there, someone would be looking after her by now, and she doesn't sense any familiar minds around her.

Which doesn't mean I'm not in the lab. Her head aches viciously as she pushes her mind out to its farthest range, searching for any sign of the minds she recognizes. There's only empty space around her, no warmth, nothing familiar.

If this is the lab, then she's alone, and there's no good reason why she would be.

Steeling herself for the inevitable, April opens her eyes, bitter dread coating the back of her tongue. It's dark all around her — good for her eyes, not so good for finding out if she's surrounded by her family's corpses — but not blackout dark, and vague shapes suggest themselves through the gloom.

None of them belong in Donnie's lab. April's dread melts away into sick, too-sweet relief for a heartbeat before confusion takes over.

Where the hell is she?

"Guys?" she whispers, then licks her lips and tries again. "Guys? Are you okay?"

No answer.

"Donnie?" she calls. Her voice echoes, but there's no reply. "Are you there?"

The silence tells her everything: wherever Donnie is, he can't answer her. She ignores the sudden clench in her chest, telling herself over and over that Donnie's fine, Donnie's safe and waiting for her with everyone else — she just has to find him.

Two more things April understands better than most people: denial and repression. She can lose her shit when she knows there's a reason to. Till then, she locks it down, out of sight, until the urge to keep yelling Donnie's name passes, and her hands don't ache.

Once she's held her breath long enough to clear her head, she sits up and scans the area. She's inside, judging by the stale air and clammy stones under her hands; when she reaches out, her right hand brushes a cool stone wall while her left hand hovers in emptiness. Water drips sullenly into a reeking puddle about ten feet in front of her, but that's the only sound other than her own breathing.

Get up and moving. She doesn't give herself a chance to argue before she pushes to her feet, and immediately regrets moving at all. Her head swims, her stomach knots and churns. Only leaning against the wall until the worst of her dizziness passes keeps her upright. When the dizzy spell fades, the headache's fully blossomed and her mouth is full of sour saliva, but she can open her eyes, and she can walk.

Well, it's more like staggering with a purpose. April keeps her right hand braced against the wall, and inches forward, pushing outward with her mind with every step. She senses nothing except stone, cold water, and colder air - but something presses at the edge of her awareness, a shape she almost recognizes.

The impression melts away like sugar on the tip of her tongue, and then she's alone again, more alone than she's been in months. Even when she was stuck in bed, locked away from the rest of the world, she hadn't been alone. She'd had Casey invading her personal space every twenty minutes, or Mikey tapping at her window - and finally, she'd had Donnie.

She has Donnie. One step after another. She can keep it together.

April walks for almost ten minutes before she reaches the far end of the room, with no sign of a door or passage beyond it. She takes the corner slowly, hand pressed to the wall not just for balance but for reassurance: a ten-minute walk just to find another wall implies a cavern, not a room. But the walls are too smooth and straight to be formed naturally, which means something built this vast, silent room, and something put her here.

Another dizzy spell makes the wall feel like it's tilting under her palm, but April refuses to let herself sink to the floor and wait for it to pass. She breathes through her mouth - wherever she is, it smells like wet garbage - and keeps walking as soon as the spell's over.

Three minutes later, April finds the doorway.

Its edges are rough, and wet from slow-running water. Fresher air pours through the opening, which does a lot to send April's headache down a few notches, but she hesitates before crossing the threshold. She's managed to avoid dying so far, but before she takes another step, she needs to ask one vital question: what the hell is going on?

The last thing she remembers is the Boar holding her by the throat, its face cracked and leaking, as it slammed her into the lockers. Then she fell, and fell, and fell, and when she woke up, she was alone in a stone room bigger than a football stadium.

"Don't freak out," she murmurs without thinking, and starts when her voice echoes down a corridor. "Huh. Okay then." She clears her throat, and steps through the doorway. There's nothing within her awareness that warns her to hide or stay quiet, but she keeps her footsteps silent. No reason to call attention to herself, in case there is something in earshot. Having both walls within reach is comforting, but that also means less room to maneuver if it comes down to a fight.

Not that it'd be much of a fight, not with her walking around with a broken rib, and a probable concussion, and no weapon. She feels a sharp, brief pang for her tessen. It's not strictly necessary anymore; when you can blast a god in the face and keep breathing afterwards, weapons become optional, but it was familiar, a link to her family.

That same muted presence presses against her mind again, insistent, but it vanishes before April can catch it. She sighs. At least it's getting stronger the longer she keeps walking.

Counting her steps keeps her mind from wandering too far, but a tiny seed of terror's taken root in her chest, no matter how hard she tries to ignore it. Donnie could be down any of the side corridors, bleeding and unconscious or worse, or he could be calling for help, and she would never know. Casey could be in pieces just out of her reach.

"Stop it," she hisses at herself through gritted teeth. Her voice is a high, weak whine, a sure sign of an impending freak-out. "Don't lose it. You can't. Keep it together, just a little longer."

Then what? Sooner or later, the darkness or the silence is going to break her, and then she'll either end up screaming her throat to shreds or trying to punch her way through a wall.

Keep moving forward until something stops you.

She thinks of the room behind her, the vast, implied emptiness, and swallows.

Keep moving forward.

Slower now, April keeps inching forward. Faint shapes dance at the edge of her vision, burning her eyes with bursts of imagined color. But the air's fresher, and cooler, and that has to be a good sign. Unless she's about to tip over into some subterranean lake and drown.

Always the optimist. She blinks to clear the shapes away, rubs her aching ribs, and blinks again. A faint white glimmer lingers even when the rest of the colors fade, and even rubbing her eyes and shaking her head doesn't clear it.

"It's not a shape," April whispers, startled again by her own voice. How long has she been walking in silence? No, that's not important — what's important is the white glimmer, shining dimly on the wall to her left.

Light on bricks. The fleeting presence isn't someone else's mind, it's a place. It's the lair, so familiar it's half-alive.

And she's getting closer.

"Guys?" she calls. There's no answer - but she's home. Only a matter of time. She tells herself not to take risks, to take it slow, and starts jogging toward the light anyways.

After ten seconds, she can see the vague shape of her hand if she holds it in front of her face; a minute after that she can make out the source of the light: a faint pinprick directly ahead of her, like the sun seen from Mars.

She starts to run, holding her ribs and powering through her headache, thinking, Donnie, I'm coming, hold on.

Her legs burn by the time she makes out the bright flames throwing off the light, but she keeps running, relishing the burn after so many weeks of inactivity, and realizes too late the torch isn't hanging from the wall, but held high in someone's hand.

It's not Donnie. It's a complete stranger, wrapped in scraps of dark fabric from head to toe. In the time it takes for April to take three steps, the stranger raises its free hand. The torchlight glitters on the edge of a blade.

Hit first, apologize later. April barely reaches for her power before it coils through her nerves. She lets out a wild, shrill yell as it gathers eagerly in the palm of her right hand. God, it feels like sticking her arm in a fire and not being burned.

The stranger's arm twitches, and the metallic glitter flies toward April's face.

Too late. She's faster. April's power bursts out of her in a seething bolt. It knocks the shuriken aside and slams into the stranger, dead-center in their chest. When it connects, April's headache disappears, her ribs stop aching, and the taste of honey fills her mouth. She can run forever, now. She can fly.

The stranger cries out and staggers, dropping the torch as they fall. They claw at the faded silk covering their face, moaning with their face turned to the wall.

"What did you do?" they rasp.

"Who the hell are you?" April asks, still holding out her hand. "What are you doing here? Did the Boar send you?" She inhales, relishing how clean she feels, how pure, as her injuries heal. "Where's Donnie?" she says, when the stranger doesn't reply.

"Donnie?" the stranger whispers, a few silent moments later. "Donnie's...here?"

April has enough time to think oh, shit before the stranger turns around, their face lined and grey in the torchlight. But alive, impossibly alive.

"What are you?" asks the other, older April.

A/N: Four more chapters left! Thank you, everyone, for sticking with me. 3