Sooo...I'm just gonna slide this chapter on the table and back away slowly. No points taken off for late work right?
Okay good. Proceed. (*Note: A lot of POV changes in this chapter)
Thanks for sticking with me lovies.
He threw his shell against the vent shaft on the roof and waited.
His pulse accelerated steadily but he kept it out of his breathing. Silence was vital, and the breeze whistling past his ears and whipping the tails of his mask against his neck wasn't helping.
He closed his eyes and pulled a breath in through his nose. "Two … three …"
He slipped a small explosive out of his belt. He extracted a match along with it and tucked it between his teeth on the right side of his mouth. "Shix … sheven …"
He yanked out a sai, slipped the tines through the screen of the vent and pried it off. He set it down on the rooftop next to him and took the match from his mouth, then waited again.
As soon as his internal timer hit twenty, an explosion went off below his feet that shook the building. He lit the match and began counting again.
"Three, two …"
He lit the fuse on the explosive and dropped it down the air duct then ran across the roof and crouched against the wall adjacent to the stairwell door just as the second explosion sounded off, this time making his ears pop.
He adjusted his crouch, maybe more out of restlessness than necessity, and pulled out his second sai.
The third explosion went off at exactly the second it was supposed to at the far end of the building, and his stomach twisted thinking of how long it had already been since Leo and Karai had blown up the entrance. How many Footbots were on top of them right now? Could Karai really be trusted not to turn on Leo and fight along with the Foot? And what if she did? There would be no one there to back Leo up. He, Raph, was on the roof. April and Casey were infiltrating through the left wing of the building, and Splinter was making a scene at the back.
A crease formed on Raph's brow and his foot took half a step toward the edge of the building before the door behind him burst open and a Footbot poked its head out.
Raph gritted his teeth, tightened his grip on his sai and threw himself out around the corner, spearing the Footbot's skull in the process. He kicked it in the chest and its head popped off of its body as easily as a bud could be plucked from the stem of a flower.
The body clattered its way backward down the stairs, but no other Footbots came to inspect the noise, so Raph tossed the head to the side and let himself in, closing the door behind him.
He weaved his way through the lobby with his head low and his grip tight on the handles of his katana. Near-black smoke curled around his torso as he decapitated one Footbot after another, spliced metallic limbs and shoved his blades through the chest of any Footbot that dared to get too close.
He couldn't see anything past a foot in front of him, but he didn't need to. Florescent white lights flickered on and off somewhere above his head, but they were too weak to cut through the smoke screen. He had no idea how many Footbots were charging them right now. He just knew he had to keep cutting them down. At least Karai was with him … somewhere. He could hear her own battle raging on toward the other end of the lobby, and that was all the assurance he needed.
What plagued his mind the most wasn't her, for once. From the satisfying clatter of metal bodies hitting the ground left and right it sounded as though she was perfectly fine. What he wanted to know was where his brothers were.
They were close, so much so that he could feel his instincts itching to lead him to them, perfectly willing to drop his swords and walk away that very second. This was what they were here for, not to fight Footbots—not this time. But he had to stomach it. April would find Donnie and Mikey, and Casey would cover her back. That was the plan. The rest of them were just a distraction.
A wisp of movement shifted the smoke to his right. It was heavier than that of a Footbot's, though it moved just as quickly, and the threat level of what could be hiding in the smoke beyond what he could see suddenly made a significant leap on his radar. He glimpsed the silhouette of something bulky slinking around his back, and he slammed another smoke bomb on the ground. He turned and faced his opponent's presence, blades crossed in front of him, knees bent.
A handful of heartbeats went by, in which he heard nothing but Karai slicing down Footbots, what now seemed, far away. He narrowed his gaze, eyes flicking back and forth, ears straining to find another shift of movement.
He heard the rumble of a growl. Then Tigerclaw leapt through the smoke hardly a yard from his face. He jumped high, just barely missing Tigerclaw's swiping paws and planted his feet on the cat's giant shoulders before kicking off of him with a flip and landing in a low crouch behind the mutant tiger.
Tigerclaw straightened his stance with a pop to his neck and turned back around to face Leo with a grin.
Leo's beak wrinkled and his muscles tensed, prepared to spring forward. But just before he could, a boney force barreled into him and sent him sliding across the tile floor through the smoke. He shook his head to clear the shock away, and when he pushed himself up, not only was he facing a giant cat, but a giant dog as well. He huffed through his nose and bolted forward.
Level three seemed to be a safe place to stop. It was quiet, and if his memory served him correctly, he'd spent his first few days of darkness on the third floor.
Still, he hesitated before openly jumping out into the hallway.
He first inched forward until his toes were aligned with the tile of the hall and just barely poked his nose out of the elevator. He glanced left, then right, but nothing came.
He took a deep breath then crossed the threshold and ran the opposite direction of the muffled explosions coming from floors both above and below them.
Mikey's weight began to sink. Donnie adjusted his grip and bucked his brother further up his shell. His eyes darted around the vacant hallway, searching for a suitable room, but he wasn't satisfied until he reached the most desolate and secluded chamber in the farthest corner of the hospital wing. There, he was relieved to find a dusty hospital bed. Though equipped with nothing more than a deflated pillow, it was more than most of the other rooms possessed. It would do.
He hurried across the room and slowly eased Mikey down onto the mattress, but even with as much tenderness as he used, Michelangelo still coughed out a small whimper. The bed echoed it with a rusty groan beneath his weight. A crease stuck itself to Donnie's brow, but he proceeded to turn Mikey over on his side, cringing internally as his little brother protested along the way.
"I know. I know," he whispered. "I'm sorry. Just hang in there. I have to take a look."
Though he hissed through his teeth, Mikey cooperated and grew still with his face pressed against the pillow.
Donnie rested a hand on top of his brother's head and peered down at the young turtle's shell through the shadows.
His stomach convulsed, and a rush of pressure tried to burst up through his throat. He swallowed and squeezed his eyes shut, unconscious of the way his fingers pressed into Mikey's temple.
"Is … Is it bad, D?" the little turtle asked.
Donnie opened his eyes and blinked away the sting. "No … No. It-It's fine," he said, hoping his tone was believable enough to pass, though he had a hard time believing even Michelangelo could've missed the hesitation in his voice. But either Mikey was too disoriented to notice or he was simply aware that now was not the time to worry about it, because he made no comment.
"I'm just going to wrap it up, okay?"
Mikey gave a nod, and Donatello went on a quick hunt for anything useful, which, in an abandoned hospital, was surprisingly very little. But he managed to dig out stale sheets and an old pair of suture scissors and set to work on cleaning up as much of Mikey's shell as was possible.
Mikey stayed amazingly still during this, which made Donnie think he might've lost consciousness a few times. He wished he was in his lab, or a real, functioning hospital for goodness sake. There should've been more available to him, more that he could work with, more time even. But the continuous rumbling of disturbances in the distance only persisted in reminding him that this wasn't over yet.
His hands shook as he bound Mikey's shell up in a cocoon of sheets, and he hoped it would be enough. He rubbed his eyes a couple of times, swayed, and shook his foggy head to keep himself present. It was not time to rest.
It was not time to rest.
When he sniffed, it was loud, and Mikey flinched as though startled out of sleep. He took a shuddering breath and turned his face to the side. Donnie could see the weakest of grins spreading across his little brother's cheek, and it was all Donatello had in him not to turn into a puddle right there, crawl up on the bed next to Mikey and simply wait until the fight was over and someone found them.
"Remember when I did this for you?" Mikey said with a tone of fondness, as though the memory was a good one.
Of course Donnie remembered. Donnie remembered how excruciating a cracked shell felt, how tired and lifeless and vulnerable he'd been, how his busted carapace was sufficiently disgusting enough to have Mikey puking in the toilet. The little crack in Donnie's shell was like a chipped a tooth compared to this.
He squinted, but nodded, and finished securing the wrappings around his brother. "Yeah."
Mikey nodded too. "Doesn't seem like that long ago."
Donnie shook his head, unable to respond.
"We gotta stop getting our asses whooped like this, bro."
The corner of Donnie's mouth twitched and he was surprised to find himself chuckling, which only made the sting in his eyes worse. He didn't understand how Mikey did it. There was nothing to smile about.
"Agreed," he said, placing a hand on Mikey's shoulder, afraid, for a moment, to leave him.
He had one fleeting moment of panic, another phantom pain, only it wasn't physical this time. Something tried to tell him that to leave Mikey meant to subject him to yet more torture. A Mikey out of his sight was a Mikey being tormented and abused, as though if Donnie left the room, the Shredder would melt out of the shadows and finish sawing his brother's shell in half.
He shuddered, again without noticing the way his grip tightened on Mikey's shoulder.
Another explosion sounded, this time much closer and he forced himself to suck up the fear.
"Alright, Mikey. Don't leave this room. I'm gonna lock the door okay?"
"No!"
He was jerked to a stop the moment he turned to leave, and was caught off guard by how quickly Mikey had flipped himself over and snatched his wrist—though it wasn't without a grimace of pain that made Donnie's stomach turn.
"I wanna come," Mikey said, attempting to get up from the bed. "I wanna fight too."
"No." Donnie shook his head as he gently urged his brother back on his side. "It's too dangerous for you. You have to—"
"I can do it. You guys need me. Just give me two seconds and I'll be okay."
He tried to push himself up but failed epically in concealing the whimper of pain that escaped him when he did. Donnie rested his hand back on his shoulder, gazing down at his little brother with a bittersweet kind of pride to his furrowed brow.
He remembered that too, being hindered by a weakness that kept him from protecting his family. But Mikey couldn't move, not at all, and Donnie was not about to let him make it worse for himself.
"You've done phenomenally already, Mikey," he said, this time purposely giving Mikey's good arm a light squeeze. "You need to stay here now. You're in no condition to fight."
"Neither are you. Look there's blood all over your face, and your tired. You haven't eaten anything. You don't even have your bō staff!"
"They need help, Mike. And I have to let them know we're okay. I'll come back for you, I promise."
At this Mikey sagged a little, his eyes a bit wider and glossed with a fear that seemed more real now than the smiling had a minute ago. He loosened his hold on Donnie's wrist.
"You promise," he repeated in a whisper.
Donnie nodded. "As soon as it's over."
Mikey swallowed and looked away, his eyes glancing at the door. "Okay."
Donnie gave him one last reassuring pat and turned to walk away again.
"Donnie."
He stopped and looked over his shoulder.
"Kick Shredder's ass for me."
Donnie smiled, a real one this time, full of as much anger, hurt, and hunger as Mikey's request. "I will."
Mikey finally nodded and lay back on his side, watching as Donatello left the room, locking the door behind him.
April's knees locked as the ground shook beneath her feet and a blast of hot wind rushed past the corner of the building they were hiding.
"Okay, I think that's enough."
"One more, for good measure," Casey said with a grin, lighting another one of his exploding pucks.
"Casey—"
He tossed the puck up and thwacked it with his hockey stick midair, sending it flying around the corner where it blew a little too close for comfort. The charred scent of burnt grass and bricks stung her nose. That particular blast was a little hot.
"Alright, come on," she said, tugging on Casey's sleeve. "I think they get it."
They sprinted around the back left of the building, opposite the side where they'd disposed of all their explosives—or at least all the ones April had been given. Who knew how many pucks Casey was still harboring - and where.
After checking the area for Footbots, they broke open a window and climbed their way into an old lab.
April began to lead the way, but Casey shot a hand out in front of her and crossed the room to the door first. He opened it a crack and peeked out into the hallway.
"Coast's clear," he whispered.
The two of them darted out of the room and charged down the hall, their footsteps leaving echoing taps along in their wake the way a ninja turtle would never allow.
"So this is like, the biggest hospital ever. How the heck are we supposed to know where to look for them?" Casey said as his eyes scanned each turnoff they passed.
April shook her head, but she knew. She could feel Donnie getting closer with every step they took. Maybe it was a perk of her super sensitive psychic alien powers, but there was something more to it too, otherwise she might've convinced herself that she wasn't sure which missing turtle she was tracking—it could've been Mikey. But it wasn't, and she knew that. It was Donnie she was being led to, and she knew that as long as they found Donnie, everything would be okay.
"This way," she said, opening a door to a stairwell.
Casey unquestioningly followed her up two flights of stairs and again ushered her behind him as he shouldered his way through the third floor door.
He peeked his head out into the hall and craned his neck to check the other side.
"Okay, I think we're—"
His eyes widened with alert and he dove out of the way, tackling April to the side and pinning her against the wall as a swarm of throwing stars planted themselves in the door. That annoying yipping followed immediately after, like a pack of chihuahuas alerting the presence of a stranger.
Two Footbots charged the doorway the same moment that Casey flew at them from the opposite side. He hooked his hockey stick around the neck of one, and slammed it down to the floor with enough of a bend to his own back to give April room to chuck her tessen into the face of the second Footbot.
It fell back, and April squeezed her way past Casey banging his stick repeatedly into his opponent's face. She yanked out her tessen and held it up defensively as she moved along the hallway with her back to the wall. There was nothing worth mentioning in immediate sight, but she paused, her ears perking up at the whisper of what ninja footsteps were supposed to sound like coming from around the nearest corner.
"Casey."
Casey straightened up and kicked the Footbot that had stopped moving a long time ago then barreled out into the hallway and ran directly for the approaching swarm.
He pulled another three pucks out of nowhere and shot them all in unison down the adjacent hall with his signature bellow of "Goongala!"
April wasn't sure why she insisted on running up to where he was, as though she should check to see how many Footbots were being blown to pieces. But the moment all three explosives went off, it sent both her and Casey flying backward with a blast of heat that stung her skin. Her back hit the wall and stars popped across her eyes. It took her a few seconds before she could do anything more than choke on smoky air and grimace at a shockwave of pain that climbed up her spine.
"Whoo!" Casey shouted, though his voice was muffled behind the ringing in her ears. "Those things got some punch!"
April groaned. "Maybe you should use less gunpowder next time."
She rolled over onto her knees and Casey came up behind her and pulled her up by her elbows. They both swayed, Casey with a goofy, gap-toothed smile and his chest heaving a little breathlessly.
"Where's the fun in that?"
April rolled her eyes, though a tiny smile of her own made it to the corner of her mouth before she turned toward the adjacent hall to find about ten Footbots crawling and leaping over the flames and dead bodies of their Footbot kin.
Casey tapped the head of his hockey stick on the ground. "Let's do this."
He sprinted to meet the Footbots head-on, thwacking two or three down before getting tackled by a forth. April attempted to come up from behind, but before she could fling her tessen, another Footbot caught her wrist. She struggled against it, trying to wiggle loose, and shot a power kick at another Footbot's stomach as it charged up at her from the side.
She grabbed her tessen with her free hand and sliced the hand off of the Footbot holding her. Its eyes flickered red with a robotic groan, but its demeanor remained eerily in control. It dodged her second swipe aimed at its head and kneed her in the gut. All the air she'd ever breathed in was snatched out of her lungs that very second and another tremble of pain rattled her spine. The Footbot didn't let her fall back. It grabbed a fistful of her shirt with its remaining hand and rammed its titanium skull against her head.
The next thing she knew, the ground was at her cheek and the floor was swaying when she tried to blink her eyes open. She thought she heard someone calling her name, but she wasn't sure. All she could distinguish was the sound of her own pulse in her ears and the blurry sight of feet moving across the floor. Something wet was leaving a path from her forehead down over her nose, but when she tried lifting her hand to wipe it away, her arm moved so slow that she couldn't seem to control it. It was like trying to move through water. Though water wasn't supposed to smell like rusted copper.
"Red … Red!"
She blinked again and felt herself turning over without meaning to, but then she realized there were hands on her. Casey's face appeared in front of her. His nose was busted, right at the bridge. Blood was still leaking from it and she was pretty sure that it was dripping down onto her shirt, but she couldn't open her mouth to tell him to back up.
"April," he said, this time his voice a little clearer. "Can you hear me? Are you okay?"
Her brow furrowed, and suddenly her chest began to pull in gasps of air as though it had just learned how to breathe. "Y-Yeah. I'm okay … I'm fine."
She pulled herself up, aware of the hand that Casey held against her back. Her brain throbbed and the hallway rocked, but after squeezing her eyes shut and opening them again, everything became still. Or at least she thought it did, until her eyes picked up movement behind Casey, and she lifted her gaze to three more Footbots coming up the hall.
"Casey," she shouted as the Footbot in the lead raised a handful of shuriken.
It reared its arm back before Casey had time to move.
All April felt was his fingers tightening around her back and his body shifting closer to her, blocking her view of the Footbot as he placed himself between her and the threat, turning his back to it.
She had a split-second's flashback of Donnie doing the same thing, his body shielding her as his eyes firmly assured her that he would not let anything harm her. Her heart skipped a beat, and she flinched as something flew past her peripheral vision - her tessen.
It buried itself in the Footbot's forehead, sending it crashing to the floor, shuriken forgotten. The other two robots fixed their attention on something April couldn't see until a very familiar green shape shot forward from the shadows and met the Footbots face-to-face.
He dodged the blade of a sword that just barely skimmed by his shoulder and performed a beautiful rising kick that took the Footbot's head off. Then he swiped up the fallen sword and slashed it at the second bot before it could lay a finger on him. The Footbot stopped, as though it could feel some kind of shock, and then split in half at the waist and the pieces crumpled to the floor.
April and Casey stared across the hallway, both breathing as though they'd just walked out of afternoon training. They watched the back of Donnie's shell as he stood with his head tilted down and his shoulders heaving, as though he was staring down at the robot he had just murdered. Then his knees began to tremble, and April suddenly felt a rush of adrenaline.
She unconsciously pushed Casey away as she shot unsteadily to her feet and ran across the hall just as Donnie turned around. She threw herself against his chest, hardly noticing the pain of crashing into his plastron, and didn't even realize she was crying until he rested his cheek against her hair with his arms closed tightly around her back.
"Are you hurt?" he whispered, his voice suspiciously unstable.
She shook her head, despite the way her skull still throbbed. It didn't matter.
She leaned back enough to take Donnie's face in her hands and plant a kiss on his lips. His body tensed for a second before he pulled her closer and kissed her back, his lips warm, saddened and eager against hers.
It didn't last long, but it didn't need to. He was there and she could feel his heartbeat, that was enough for her to breathe for now.
He hugged her again, his arms surprisingly strong for how much they shook, and she distinctly heard him sniff this time.
"I'm sorry we took so long," she said into his shoulder.
He ran his hand down her back. "I'm just glad you showed up at all. I didn't think …" He swallowed, and his arms released her.
When she finally got a good look at him, her chest tightened and brought another grimace to her face. His skin was pale, his forehead glossy with sweat, his eyes red-rimmed and teary and plagued again by those bruise-like shadows underneath. There was a nasty gash across his cheek, and a blood-stained bandage wrapped around his left arm. He looked severely gaunt and sleep-deprived ... But he was alive, and his hand was warm when he reached up and gently touched her face.
"You're bleeding."
"I'm fine."
"Me too," Casey said.
They both looked over at him as he stood and arched his back. He made a face as his spine popped then straightened up and cracked his neck. Though there was blood smeared all over his face, he seemed still as Casey Jones as ever, except maybe for the tiny flicker of an unidentifiable emotion in his eyes when his gaze met Donnie's.
"Ouch," Donnie said. He walked over to Casey and grimaced as he took a closer look at his nose.
Casey shrugged. "No biggy. I got my nose busted way back in like middle school before, took twelve stitches to patch it up."
"Congratulations."
Casey cocked half a smile. "But I should be congratulating you right?" He gave Donnie a slap on the shoulder and his eyes flicked to April. "Guess if I really wanted that kiss I should've gotten myself kidnapped, huh?"
Donnie's lips turned up into a tiny smile. "You should definitely try it some time. I'll even let them keep you a while to make it more dramatic."
Casey shook his head and this time gave Donnie's shoulder a punch. "Good to have you back, D."
They shared a grin that was affectionate in its own unexplainable kind of way, and April let out a breath of relief. She poked her fingers into the pocket of her shorts and pulled out the purple fabric of Donatello's mask.
"Donnie," she said, walking up to tie the mask around his face for him. He bent his head forward so that she could reach and she kissed his forehead. "Don't ever leave us again."
Though there was a hint of sadness lingering on the corner of his mouth, Donnie smiled and rested his hand on April's wrist.
He yanked the head off of the Footbot in his arms and it ceased its struggling. He let if fall to the ground then gazed over the bodies of the lifeless robots scattered over the backyard of the hospital.
His whiskers twitched and he glanced up to see a silhouette of a figure hovering over the ground in the near distance. He pressed himself close to the back wall of the building, blending with the shadows, but the flying thing seemed only preoccupied by its own hurry to get away.
Splinter squinted and sniffed the air. The scent of his youngest son's favorite candy bar tickled his nose.
He watched Baxter Stockman until he disappeared into the night, probably never to be seen again, and hardly felt any pity for his enemy. Even Saki's own men cared little enough about him to abandon him. In fact, Splinter felt a flutter of bitter satisfaction knowing this.
But the moment was over as soon as an explosion went off overhead at the far left end of the building. He glanced up toward the disruption and furrowed his brow. There weren't supposed to be bombs going off above the first floor unless they were from Raphael, but Splinter knew his second eldest was in fact nowhere near the left wing, which meant something was wrong. And April and Casey were drawing far too much attention to themselves.
Splinter turned from the noise. He quickly found a way into the building and started for the third floor.