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TMNT, Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, Splinter, and LeatherHead © Mirage Studios
story © Turtlefreak121
Flicker
Chapter Six: Snapping
All in all, the whole thing had taken less than a minute.
It happened so fast that it left them all standing in the doorway dumbstruck.
The only thing Mikey could get himself to feel was the sting of the slap to his shoulder, what had made him release his escaping brother.
The three remaining turtles and April could not break the shocked silence that followed watching Donatello truly snap.
Mikey felt sick to his stomach. They had all worked, to varying degrees, to act like whatever had been going on with Don was perfectly normal. That they just needed patience and positivity to get over it. To overcome whatever Don was going through.
But they had been very, very wrong.
"What the hell just happened?" Raph cried out first.
The ice broken, everyone instantly began rolling into motion, almost trying to make up for the time lost to their astonishment.
Leonardo tore out for the alley first, yelling desperately for their brother. "Donny!"
"Oh my god!" April shouted, putting her hand over her mouth. "We were just talking! I-I thought he was acting odd, but it wasn't… we were just talking! What just happened!?"
Raph followed Leo into the alley but Mike remained still and silent. His hand reached up and gently rubbed his stinging shoulder. He stared at April, but he wasn't really looking at her.
His mind was putting Don's "escape" on replay.
Don had swatted the air hard on his way through, making contact with Michelangelo's shoulder along the way. But it was the mannerisms that came with the motion, almost savage and animalistic.
It reminded him of not so long ago when Don had temporarily been more beastthan brother.
The same kind of beast that had been more than willing to eat Mikey. Whose humanity flickered out of Don's kind and intelligent eyes.
The air was kicked from Mikey's lungs. But he had to force himself into motion, to trail after his brothers. To tell them of his observation, if nothing else.
"Damn it!" Raph was cursing up ahead. "Where is he going!?"
Mike couldn't see Leo so he kept hope that their eldest would be able to keep up with Don.
He came to a halt at Raph's side, not realizing April had followed, too, until she came up breathlessly behind them.
"I-I don't know how it happened!" she cried out again.
Frustrated, Raphael leaped to the fire escape and presumably followed whatever direction he had seen Leo and Don go.
But Mike stayed, seeing the wobble in April's body. He pulled her close to him instead. She had the same horror and recognition written on her face that Mike was feeling himself. And it was dizzying to know it was not simply him.
"It… It was like watching someone's body escape his mind. It was like Don justleft it," April choked out before looking to Mike. "It was like he became wild, Mikey!"
For once, Michelangelo was at a loss for words.
He knew exactly what she meant.
"Did you see it?"
It was a question that pounded Raphael's mind. It chipped away the stoney surface he had grown over the past weeks and waited for a few heartbeats for a response. Anxious, biding.
Not for an answer. He knew Leo had seen it. But just for the confirmation. So that the burden of the realization didn't rest squarely on him alone.
"He's sick. There's something wrong," Leonardo responded quickly. He paused in their pursuit and looked from building corner to corner. There was no trace of Don on the roof. "He's moving faster than usual. Dammit. Do you think he went underground?"
Raphael paused. He could hear the pounding in his ears now, blocking all other thought. The image of Don leaving them, barreling through them, continued to replay itself. He moved so fast but that was not what was bother the red masked turtled.
"Didn't you see it, Leo?" he demanded.
He watched as Leonardo paused.
There was a lot that he could have seen. The ferociousness in their little brother's eyes had been something that was unavoidable. But so too had the strength in his wild swing. It was just too hauntingly apparent that a beast had taken over sweet and sensible Donatello.
"I don't think it's, well, that," Leo said with a breath that was too short.
Leo was determined to lead them forward.
Under his lead, they dropped from the top of the building, relying on instinct to find their brother's escape route.
"How can you say that if you saw it?" Raph hissed. "It was like he was someone else."
"I didn't say they couldn't be related, I just don't think it's that," the leader responded as they continued on. "This wasn't Don becoming something else it was just like… Don checked out. It wasn't exactly like what had happened."
"So what're you saying, Leo?" Raph snapped. "Something else coincidentally is going on up in Donny's head?"
"You're saying it's impossible?" Leo asked, glancing over his shoulder at his brother. His eyes narrowed slightly and he looked forward again. "He shouldn't have gotten this far away. He would have had to gone to the sewers."
"Nothing else could be wrong with Donny's head, Leo," Raph stated defensively as they came to a halt. "It's Donny, he's the brains of the family. We can't do much of nothing without him. He just can't have something wrong with his head that isn't from one of our nutso adventures."
"We'll figure out what it is when we find him," Leo stated lowly, glancing about. He was looking around for clues still. "Just one clue, Donny. Come on."
"Leo, if he's going to go all monster on us again," Raph continued, "there's nothing we can do for him. Not with nothing bur our weapons anyway. If he's Monster Don we'd need our stuff in the Lair and LeatherHead."
"And if he's not that then we need to focus on finding our brother and helping him," Leonardo hissed before placing his hand over his chin. "Where did Don go the last time he blanked on us like this? Wasn't it near the Old Lair?"
"Yeah, it was," Raphael stated before looking around. "Think he went back?"
"Only one way to find out," Leonardo responded lowly before turning toward the East .He glared at the blank skyline, aggravated. "Come on, we'll head him off. "Well try to figure out just what the shell is going on after we catch up to him."
Nodding, Raphael followed again. It was not a perfect plan but it was one worth following. For now.
He felt the wetness of his skin. The darkness had taken over the skies once more and, returned to his right mind, he realized that the explanation rested in storm clouds. The water pelted his skin which had suddenly become chilled to numb.
Very tired, his eyes begged to be closed but he knew better than to sleep. He did not know where he was but he figured it was not safe. At least not yet.
Don swallowed and looked around. There were faint memories of him getting to where he was but they were not capable of being focused. He had no idea how they started or why this had all happened.
At the same time, he was too tired to care.
Instead, he closed his eyes and waited for his skin to melt off, pouring into the storm's runoff.
After standing in the rain for a while, he could hear his brothers come to him.
Strangely, though, he felt no emotion toward the occurrence one way or the other. If they left him to melt or they took him home, Don would not care in the fuzziness of his mind.
It was like half of his body was shut down.
"Don, are you okay?" Leo questioned worriedly, approaching with what Don would have normally seen as an unusual amount of caution. His eyes searched up and down Don's body, as if there was some sort of disfiguration to be found.
Don nodded tiredly. He supposed he was fine.
"What are you doing, Don?" Raph asked. "You scared us to death."
Finding the strength to smile, Don looked to them. "Enjoying the rain."
They stared at him, perplexed. A part of Don's brain, struggling with the flicker of life it had left, was worried why they were looking that way. That single nerve knew that it had to have a reason behind it but wasn't strong enough to force Don to care.
"What rain?" Leo questioned.
"You're in the sewers, Don," Raph continued.
He didn't care anymore. Don turned more toward them, swaying slightly off balance. "Are you going to take me home?"
They were quiet before nodding. He was glad they were taking him home. The rain had stopped at the mention of its non-existence.