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Of Hearts and Shells: 50 Shades of Green	By : prplraven Category: +S through Z > Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Views: 2973 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: TMNT and all associated characters are property of their original creators. This fic is for entertainment only, and I receive no monies from this publication.

Chapter List
- 14
- 15
- 16
Donnie sat April on her knees and untied his mask from her mouth. She immediately launched into trying to entice him to having sex with her again. “Donnie, please, just f—mmph!” He stuffed a riceball into her mouth, pushing it in firmly.
“Don’t talk, just eat,” he instructed with a despondent sort of annoyance. He refused to look her in the eyes; he’d already made the mistake of letting her connect to him once, and the rolling tide of her lust nearly bowled him over. Only the bitterness of her betrayal held him back; he would have gladly thrown her down and taken her otherwise, with all of her emotions taking him over. And somewhere beneath all that desire was the person he knew, begging to get out, forced under by that uncontrollable libido.
He chided himself again for not figuring out sooner what the help was she was asking for. Perhaps if he’d caught it earlier, he could have stopped things from going so far. Then there was his own shortsighted denial that anything had been wrong, perpetuated by the pleasure she brought him. He had to admit, he hadn’t wanted to stop either. Part of him wished that he had given in when she’d wanted to run away. Maybe they would have been happier for it. But then, that was denial again, wasn’t it?
She started to speak again. He popped another riceball into her mouth before she could form a word and held it there with a finger. “Oh, April…” he breathed. “Why did you have to go and ruin everything?”
She let out a tiny gasp, and her eyes brimmed with tears that trickled down her cheeks as she turned her head away. Donnie could see that he’d stung her. He wasn’t sure whether to feel pity or grief or anger at her. Perhaps it was all three, but anger was definitely edging out the other two. She finished the bite in her mouth and swallowed, but refused to accept any more from him. She also didn’t say anything: no begging, no propositions. For the moment, the real April seemed to be surfacing as remorse drove back desire, or maybe it was just another ploy for sympathy… Donnie couldn’t tell, and it wasn’t worth his time to try to make the distinction. His emotions were exhausted; he felt broken. He held out the mask he’d used to gag her. She opened her mouth for it with no protest, continuing to cry silently as if accepting a punishment she knew she deserved.
He untied the chain from her legs, letting her walk before him to the bathroom, not giving her the opportunity to jump him from behind if she got any ideas. She hadn’t tried it in the three days she had been bound so far, but unstable as she was, it was better not to take the chance. After she relieved herself, he brought her back to the living room. “Sitting or kneeling, or on your back or belly,” Donnie listed her options for her position for the next couple of hours, as had been their routine for the past few days. She leaned forward onto the bench and allowed her legs to be bound behind her again. “Here, floor, bed, or the swing?” he asked. She thought for a second, then used her chin to point toward the tire swing. He picked up the bundle of hogtied turtle and carried her to the swing, making sure she was resting stably in it.
Donnie stared at her for a moment. She made a pathetic picture, wrapped in chains and unable to move. The trails of her tears, still wet on her cheeks, made her look especially broken. He wanted to tell her how sorry he was for doing this to her, and yet, he still hated her for going to Raph. Part of him wanted to see her suffer; it was her own damn fault, anyway.
Or was it? If she didn’t have any control over her actions, and her libido had propelled her toward Raph, could you call it her fault?
Maybe the better question to ask was if he cared. No, he was bound and determined to hold onto his anger; it was the only foothold he had to keep himself from giving in to his softer feelings for her, and possibly making another mistake. He glared at her, then felt bad for doing it.
Mikey slid open the dojo door. “Yo, D, you coming? I don’t wanna go up against Raph and Leo alone…”
“Yeah, Mikey… be there in a second,” he replied, then turned back to April. “I’ll be back in a couple hours. If you need anything, scream.”
She mumbled something through her gag. Donnie ignored her and headed off to train with his brothers, leaving her alone.
Casey leapt over the gates with a hand-plant. “What’s up, yo?” he announced, looking around to see no one. “Aw man… wasted a perfectly good entrance. Hello? Anybody home?”
The shouts and clashes of weapons in the dojo drew his attention, but he was immediately distracted by a muffled “Mmm! Mmmmph!” from the tire swing.
Casey blinked at the bound, gagged turtle in the swing. “April? …the hell?!” He raced over to her and untied the gag from her mouth.
She breathed a sigh of relief at having it removed. “Casey! Help me… “ she whispered. “You gotta get me out of here!”
Casey immediately pulled the kusarigama loose from the chains and began unwrapping her. “What happened, Red? Who did this to you?!”
“The turtles! They’re planning on keeping me here… as their own personal sexual plaything!”
“What?!” He shook his head. “No way! Donnie wouldn’t—“
She cut him off. “Shhh… keep your voice down! Look whose mask was in my mouth.”
He looked down at the purple cloth. “No…” He turned his gaze back to her with heartbroken disbelief. Enraged, he set his jaw and yanked furiously at the chains still binding her arms and hands, freeing her at last.
She gasped gratefully, rubbing her wrists. “Come on…” she whispered, grabbing his hand and towing him toward the steps.
Casey scrunched up his face dumbfoundedly as he climbed the steps trailing her. “But… This doesn’t make any sense… I thought Donnie was working on a restoration thingy for you… with the special mutagen and all… ”
She stopped his thought process by drawing close to him, seeming as though she intended to kiss him. “Casey? Thank you. And I’m sorry.”
He froze. “Sorry? For wha—OOF!” She kicked his feet out from under him, then drew his hockey stick from his back and cracked him across the back of the head with it before he could get to his feet. He went down and didn’t move. “I’ll make it up to you someday,” she said, dashing for the gates, pausing as she spied the bowl full of smoke bombs. She couldn’t get to her tessen, securely out of her possession on the weapon rack in the dojo, but there were small weapons in the lair she could equip herself with… just in case they tried to stop her.
Moving silently, she climbed the steps and tiptoed over Casey’s prone form. She was about to start into a run when he reached out and grabbed her ankle, tripping her. She let out a startled yelp as she fell to her hands. She kicked backward and yanked her foot out of his grasp. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him more than necessary, but now he was interfering too much with her escape. She swung his hockey stick at his head. He dodged backward as he got a knee under him, reached out and caught the blade between his hands. “Haa…” he smirked, gripping the handle and starting to pull it away from her. Judging his intent, she let go and landed a powerful jump-kick to the butt of the stick, driving the blade hard into a shocked Casey’s chest. Between the strength of his pull and her kick, he caught air down the steps, landing in a rolling heap.
“I’m so sorry!” she called back as she fled.
Leonardo turned his head, taking his attention off his spar with Raph. “Did you hear something just now?”
“NO,” Raphael replied definitively, twisting his sai against Leo’s katanas, “and quit trying to distract me.”
“I’m serious, Raph! I heard something… like something hitting the floor.”
Donnie, under an onslaught of blows from Mikey’s nun-chucks, cocked an eye toward Leo and Raph’s conversation. Then he heard a shriek… and it didn’t sound gagged. “April…” he realized, concern for her immediately flooding him despite trying to maintain his anger at her. He ducked out from under Mikey’s attacks and ran for the door, nearly overtaking Leo and Raph as they went to check out the source of the noise, Mikey trailing after him. “April!” he called, suddenly desperate to know she was all right. He rounded the doorframe and gaped at what he saw. “Aw, fuck…” he spat, realizing what had transpired.
“Casey!” Leo ran to the battered teen, who sat up dizzily.
Donatello called for April again futilely, knowing she wasn’t in the lair. He ran to the gates, looking one direction and then the other for her, but there was no trace of her.
“What happened?” Leo asked, already suspecting what the answer would be.
“April… I unchained her, and she jumped me…” he answered fuzzily.
“Why’d you let her loose?!” Donnie snapped at him.
The young man gasped as his head throbbed. He squinted back at Donnie. “She said… you all were keeping her as a sex slave…”
Raph snorted. “And you believed that?!”
“Gross…” Mikey interjected, sticking his tongue out in distaste.
“Well, no,” Casey answered. “Not exactly… but when I got too suspicious, bam.” He mimed being punched in the head.
Leo sighed and shook his head, throwing Donnie a knowing but accusational look before turning back to Casey. “Did you see which way she went?”
Casey gave him a tiny shake of his head.
“Did she…” Donnie started to ask the awkward question. “Did she try to seduce you or make you have sex with her?”
Casey gawked at him. “What the hell kind of question is that?!”
They all breathed a sigh of relief. “That sounds like a no, at least…” Leo guessed.
“She’s sick in the head,” Raph explained. “The mutation is driving her sex-crazy, and kind of making her a compulsive liar too… She’ll do anything to get what she wants, including manipulating people any way she can.”
“Looks like she only goes for turtles, though, or she’d’ve gone after you for sure,” Leo added.
“But we’re all down here,” Mikey noted. “So why’d she run off? Does she think she’s gonna find more turtles around here or something?”
Donnie paced, thinking. “More than anything, she’s wanted to stay a turtle. She tried to sabotage the retro-mutagen… not badly enough to ruin it, but enough to delay the process by a couple of days. If she’s working on modified instinctual drives, then she probably has two objectives: reproduction, and self-preservation, in this case, staying a turtle in order to reproduce in the future.”
“In which case, she may try to ambush us,” Leo added.
“Maybe…” Donatello considered, “though, if she’s acting on a fight-or-flight instinct, she may be running to somewhere safe, or to someone who can give her asylum.”
“Like Cav!” Mikey exclaimed.
“Good thinking, Mikey… if anyone is anti-reversion, it’s Cav. If April makes it to him, he’ll find somewhere to hide her or put up a good fight trying to keep us away from her,” Leo reasoned.
“And also, because he lives in an old asylum,” Mikey added proudly, making the others groan in response.
Raph shook his head. “He starts off so well sometimes, but at some point, the thought hamster falls off the wheel…”
“Let’s go,” Leo ordered. “Mikey, why don’t you stay here with Casey—“
“Why do I have to stay behind?!” Mikey protested.
“Casey Jones can take care of himself!” Casey likewise complained.
“—in case April comes back.” Leo said sternly, emphasizing each word.
“Oh,” Casey said, backing down.
“In that case, fine,” Mikey agreed. “We’re good.”
With that, Leo and Raph caught up with Donnie at the turnstiles, the three of them sprinting down the tunnel.
“She couldn’t have decided to escape after dark, could she?” Raph growled as the three of them pelted across the rooftops. “She just had to run out when we’re most likely to get spotted…”
“Just run!” Leo commanded. “She’s got a big lead on us. Fan out!” Donnie and Raph, flanking Leo, extended their range by two buildings on either side of him.
Leonardo was first to spot the rogue turtle as she made a beeline for the condemned building. April sensed him coming, looking back over her shoulder at him as she continued to run. “April!” he shouted at her. “Stop! You don’t have to—“ He was cut off by a massive explosion of smoke bombs in his path. Leo came out of the cloud coughing and wheezing, losing ground on her while he recovered. Donnie and Raph drew closer together as Leo fell behind.
Raphael was prepared when she pulled a similar trick on him. What he wasn’t prepared for was a second explosion almost directly after the first, with a grappling rope strung low across his path. Vision obscured, he ran straight into the obscured wire and clotheslined himself. He hit the rooftop and slid to a stop on his shell, sending up a cloud of dust in his wake.
Donnie found himself far ahead of his brothers. He was gaining on her with his longer stride. Please… please don’t make me fight you… he thought in earnest. If she had snagged all the smoke bombs she could carry, surely she had grabbed the shuriken by the door as well… The inevitable cloud of smoke blew up in front of him. He held his breath and squinted his eyes against it. Anticipating her attack, he ducked his head into his shell and spun his bo ahead of him like a shield, just in time to deflect a small hail of throwing stars. Three of them stuck in the wood, he noted as he emerged untouched.   Ahead of him, April looked back over her shoulder, giving a little shriek and missing a step at the sight of the beheaded-looking Donatello. She breathed a sigh of relief as he popped his head back out.
They passed the bank, the abandoned asylum looming in the distance. April cocked her head, tracking something—someone Donnie couldn’t see, but in a moment, a cloud of purple smoke revealed Karai, in her human guise, falchion held out to one side in a blocking gesture. April seemed a bit leery, but then changed her mind and direction, and dashed toward Karai. The latter lowered her sword as the turtle girl reached her and the two began an urgent conversation. Karai took a shocked step back at what was being said to her. She yanked April to herself with one arm, pointing her sword at Donnie as he arrived on the scene.
“Whatever she told you, I can guarantee, it’s a lie,” he told her flatly.
Karai regarded him with a cool reptilian gaze. “That’sss ffar enouffgh…”
Leo landed on the roof beside Donatello. “Karai... you can’t trust her! She’s not right in the head!”
“Even ssso, gang rape iszz a pretty ssstrong allegation. I can’t jussst let thhhat go unnotissced,” the kunoichi countered, shifting her posture to defend, the falchion’s blade aimed outward at them. However, she held on to April’s carapace more like a hostage than someone she was protecting.
“It’s her mutation… it’s doing something to her mind! We need to help her!” Donnie pleaded as Raph landed and jogged to a stop on the roof behind him.
Karai hissed something to April. The female turtle replied with an emphatic nod. “Well, be thhat aszz it may, I gotta ssside withhh my girl.” She moved so her hand was casually draped around April’s neck. “We women, we gotta sssstick togethhher, afffter all...”
April yelped and her hand went to her neck, a look of anger and betrayal on her face. “You bi—“ she started to say, falling unconscious and collapsing to the rooftop out from under Karai’s hand, which held a tiny dart.
“Oopsss,” she grinned charmingly at Leo, lowering her sword. “Thhhat poissson sshhould keep her out fffor at leassst nine hoursss. Plenty ofvv time fffor any gang rape you’re actually planning to perpetrate,” she joked. “Thhhough ifff I ffind out about it actually happening, I’ll cassstrate all of you.” She pointed at each of them with the tip of the falchion before sheathing it.
“You could tell she was lying?” Leo queried as Donnie rushed in to scoop up the knocked-out April.
The kunoichi laughed and rolled her eyes. “Oh, pleassse… thhe girl can’t lie for sshhhit! I knew ffor sssure when shhhe ssaid Mikey waszz in on it. Really, sssomeone’ss gotta tell her…” She grimaced and shuddered as she reverted to her serpent form, falling to the roof as her legs disappeared from under her. Leonardo helped her up.
“Thanks,” he told her genuinely. A curious look appeared on his face. “How did you know we were coming?”
She snorted. “You kidding? Withhh thhat many sssmoke bombsss? In broad daylight? Unssstealthhiesst ninja evvver!” She turned to Donnie, who had the unconscious turtle couched in his arms. “How much longer…?
“Two days,” he answered sadly, eyes on his lover—former lover, he had to remind himself. Karai ran a snake-headed hand over his shoulder in a consoling gesture. She hissed in a way that was possibly sympathetic, her snake eyes piercing him with their unblinking stare. Their situations shared, or soon would share, some odd similarities. Donnie met her gaze, giving her a nod of gratitude.
“Two blocksss ovvver iszz a back alley withhh sssewer accessss,” she informed the group. “Givvve my fatthher my…” She paused a moment, thinking. “…my fffond regardszz.”
Leo squeezed her shoulder. “We will.” She touched her snout to his beak briefly as they set off in the direction she had indicated.
Donatello shifted April’s dead weight in his arms. It had been a long way to carry her, but he wouldn’t let Leo or Raph take over from him, despite their offers to help. He took her as his literal burden to bear, as well as figurative.
He glanced upward as they passed the turnstiles. “This is also not quite the ‘carrying you over the threshold’ I had in mind…” he murmured to her, unconscious though she was.
Michelangelo looked over at the group from the old arcade game as they trundled silently into the lair, then did a double-take at April in Donnie’s arms. “Oh my god, April! Is she dead?!”
Casey shot to his feet from the beanbag chair. “WHAT?!” He pelted to the stairs faster than one would think humanly possible. “April!”
“She’s not dead,” Leo explained, receiving relieved breaths from the two distraught onlookers. “Karai just put her out with a poison dart. Mikey, kusarigama chain, please…”
Donnie set her down on her knees gently, holding her shell so that the others could loop the chain around her, binding her wrists and ankles tightly, then pinning the chain tightly with the point of Mikey’s blade. “I swear to Darwin… I take my eyes off her for one second and something goes wrong…”
“That does seem to be the case,” Leo mulled. “From now on, I want a double watch on her… four-hour shifts, no falling asleep—“
“Leo, I can manage—“ Donnie started. Leo cut him off.
“—which is why most of the shifts will be you and someone else. You don’t have to do everything by yourself, Donnie… We’re your brothers. Let us help. We’re April’s friends too.”
“…as is Casey Jones. I can take a shift before I go home,” he volunteered. Leo nodded assent.
“Guys…” Donnie started, touched, but then didn’t know what else to say. “…Thanks.”
Donatello puttered about in his lab, with Mikey nearby, spinning around in his chair to see how dizzy he could make himself. Donnie didn’t know if this made for an effective watch, but it was keeping Mikey out of trouble at least. Behind him, April sighed in her sleep.
He spent some time transferring mutagen in and out of the centrifuge for Frito’s cure. He looked down his checklist for the hundredth time. Just like the first batch of retro-mutagen he’d made, he’d spun, separated, filtrated, heated, enzymated, incubated, cooled, and incubated again… Now it was just a few hours before it was ready. Then, like the batch he’d made for Mr. O’Neil, he just had to… had to… add…
“No…” he realized. “No! NO! Nonononono…. Ohhh…” His head dropped into his hands. “Oh my god, I’m an idiot!!”
April started awake at his shout. Mikey stopped his spinning as Donnie frantically flipped through his notes. “What’s wrong, D?”
“I didn’t write it down… The final step, I didn’t document it! Ohhhh….” he groaned in despair.
Mikey was optimistic. “It’s okay. You can write it down now!” He picked a pencil up off the desk and twirled it around in his fingers, preparing to hand it to Donnie.
Don glared at him, and his voice sounded hollow as he responded. “That’s not the problem, Mikey! Last time I made the retro-mutagen, I had to add some of April’s blood, because of her immunity. But now… I can’t add her own blood to the retro-mutagen… it won’t work!” He slammed his fists on the desk.
April made a small, sad noise through her gag. Donnie dropped to his knees, gathering her up in his arms, tears spilling from his eyes. “I can’t fix you…” he breathed, shaking. “I can’t fix you!”
She gazed at him steadily, her own eyes slowly tearing up, more in reaction to his than for her own plight. She murmured something through Donnie’s mask and nuzzled his face with her beak consolingly.
“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry!” he cried, hugging her closer and burying his head in her neck.
Mikey laid a hand on his brother’s shoulder, also starting to get choked up. “It’ll be okay, Donnie… you’ll think of something. You always think of something…” Raph and Leo appeared at the door, followed by Splinter. Mikey sadly shook his head at them.
Donnie paid them no heed as they entered, surrounding him and trying to offer comfort. He was lost in his despair and April’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Sweetheart….” She set her head atop his, her sympathetic tears trickling down to merge with his.
Donnie didn’t sleep. His eyes burned from all the tears he’d shed through the night. He longed for April’s comfort, ached to untie her so she could wrap her arms around him, wished to dive into their synergy so her love could wash over him and her thoughts could reassure him, tell him it was all right… But he couldn’t. He didn’t dare, even though she seemed to have calmed completely. Who knew what else she might try, or how strong that raging lust had grown, waiting to strike at the first opportunity? All it needed was one weak fool… and Donnie refused to be that fool; he’d been that fool too many times already.
She had nuzzled him again and again as he wept over her for hours, the only motion she could manage, sometimes sympathetic and sometimes while giving him bedroom eyes, but she had eventually fallen asleep. He stroked her hair out of her eyes. She stretched against her bonds, making the chains clink. Tears sprung to his eyes again. “All I ever wanted was for you to be free…” he whispered. “Now look at you… I said I didn’t want you trapped down here; now we have to keep you chained down here, of all things…”
He turned over and tried to make his mind shut up enough to sleep. Sleep, to block out the world for a few precious hours, would have been welcome, but he tossed and turned, mind both too mournful and too busy to pass out. His mistake plagued him; not only had he failed April, now he was at a loss as to what to do. How was he going to explain to Mr. O’Neil that his daughter wasn’t coming home… not today, maybe not ever? And that they were keeping her restrained with chains and a gag? That wouldn’t go over well…
And surely April’s teachers would start to notice the lack of her homework coming in… would Kirby have to go to the police, declare her missing? That could raise some awkward questions for him, about the forged medical notes, why only two people had seen her over the course of two months (and that might implicate Casey as an accomplice)… even the whereabouts of her mother. The whole ordeal had been hard enough on April’s dad; he didn’t need the added burden of suspected murder investigations, or whatever else might creep up. Of course, they had no proof against him, other than that a colleague had forged a note excusing his child for being very ill, but Kirby wasn’t all that steady of a person to begin with… the stress would probably devastate him.
Raph and Leo spent their 2 o’clock to 6 a.m. shift sitting at the back corner of the dojo space, as far away from Don and April as they could, so as not to disturb them. Donatello listened in on their conversation as he lay there, desperate for something to take him away from his own thoughts.
“…don’t know what we’re going to do about her… we can’t keep her tied up forever; it’s too cruel.”
“I s’pose we could use her as a paperweight…”
“That’s not funny.”
“It’s a little funny.”
That was the last straw; he couldn’t lay here any more. He stood up, picking up his bo from the weapon rack and heading out of the dojo.
Leo caught sight of him and sat up. “Donnie? Where ya goin’?”
Donatello paused, thinking. “I don’t know. Out.” He turned and left without giving an explanation.
Behind him, he heard Leo hiss at Raph, “I think he heard you, idiot!”
Donnie really didn’t have any idea where he was headed when he left the lair; he just couldn’t be there any more at the moment. He exited the sewer and climbed the fire escape of the nearest building. Then he took a seat on its edge and sat, staring at the sky until the sun rose. He didn’t know why this was what he decided to do, but it was nice to be reminded that there was still light at the end of the darkness.
As the sun warmed him, his mind went back to that wonderful emptiness, the love and warmth and completeness of the soul plane, and for the moment, he felt nearly whole again.
When he returned to the lair, his brothers were gathered in the kitchen for breakfast, though things were oddly quiet. As Donnie got a glimpse of the kitchen, he understood why: all of them had their noise-canceling headphones on while April was having oatmeal spooned into her mouth by Leonardo. Clever, Donnie thought. Any propositions she was making between mouthfuls were falling on deafened ears. April, however, looked fairly annoyed… possibly due to the fact that every time she tried to say something, Mikey would taunt her with, “La-la-la, I can’t hear you!”
Out of habit, he headed into his lab, but only a few steps in, his newfound serenity sloughed away, dejection and the weight of failure falling back onto his shoulders like a cloak he couldn’t manage to take off. He backed out of the room and headed for the dojo instead, but the cloak of bitter emotions still went with him.
Deciding to start working on his unarmed moves, he set his bo on the weapon rack, warmed up his muscles, and started working on some block-kick combos. His body went through the drills on auto-pilot, leaving his distracted mind to continue running, despite Donnie’s intent to lose himself in concentrating on his form.
So stupid… how could I possibly have forgotten to document the last step of my success? That had thrown everything off from the beginning… if he had been able to read a note that he had used April’s blood in the retro-mutagen, he might have done more research before barreling into the lengthy process of making something that was, ultimately, useless. And now that he had to go back to square one and research the ionized mutagen, he might not end up having enough left for the retro-mutagen itself… I am such a goddamn idiot… How much time had he wasted, trying to make April’s cure?   How much time had he wasted, in denial that anything was wrong with her? Leo had tried to warn him, and he’d ignored it… Why did he insist on being so stubborn?! Now April wasn’t even free to move around, lest she try to run again, or try to seduce or rape one of them…
That thought just brought back the memory of her with Raph, and his anger at both of them flooded back. Why did she have to—
Donnie found himself facing the wall. Out of sheer frustration, he punched it, making the weapon rack rattle. As he rubbed his hand, his bo fell off the rack, hitting the floor with a clatter.   It landed in just the right spot to spring the catch for the naginata blade, which slid out with a shing! He sighed, bending to pick it up, and stopped, staring at the blade, still with the purple stain Donnie had never gotten around to cleaning off… Kraang blood.
He stared at it, mouth opening to an o as cogs in his brain snapped together and started turning. He snatched it off the floor and dashed for his lab, nearly stabbing Raph with the point as he rounded the dojo door. “Hey! Watch it, Don—Donnie?” Raph’s gaze swiveled around, following his brother’s path as he pelted across the lair to his lab. He grinned, nodding with his chin to Donnie as Mikey showed up. “Donnie’s got an idea.” Mikey squee’ed in anticipation.
Hope renewed, Donatello dampened a cotton swab and wetted the dried blood on his naginata, swiping the sample across a glass slide. He added a tiny drop of the retro-mutagen to it. Now for the final component…
He approached April, who had been set up on the bean bag to watch TV, with a syringe in his hand. She looked up at him curiously. “Just need a drop of your blood,” he explained, poking her in the shoulder with the needle.
April flinched slightly as she was pricked. “Mrrph! Mmmph?!” she complained through her gag.
“Sorry,” he said shortly. “Hopefully it won’t be for nothing.”
He returned to the lab and added April’s blood to the slide, covered it, and slid it under his microscope. He peered into the eyepiece and paused, watching. There wasn’t much change in the mutant cells, given how old the Kraang blood was, but a few of them reacted, turning normal. “Yes!” Donnie shouted. “This is promising! Very promising!”
Now he needed his brothers’ help.
Donnie’s face appeared around the door of the dojo, bearing a wide grin. “Can I see you guys for a minute? New mission time.” He gave Raph an especially wry grin.
The silent grin rankled Raph. “What?!” he demanded.
Don grinned further. “You’re gonna love this one.”
Raph raised a skeptical eyebrow at him.
“I think I’ve found a way to make April’s retro-mutagen work,” Donatello explained, “but for it, I’m going to need roughly a pint of Kraang blood.”
Raph smiled, sitting back and crossing his arms. “Hey, you’re right; I DO like this plan already!”
“How is that supposed to work, though? I thought April already had Kraang blood, and the mutagen bypassed it,” Leo pointed out.
“As far as I can tell, it has to do with the shift in the alignment in the basic structure of the mutagen; the latticed matrix structure of the ionized mutagen didn’t allow the Kraang components of April’s blood to latch on. However, pure Kraang blood is much denser than April’s. So by infusing it into the somewhat de-ionized retro-mutagen, it should give the mutagen particles a thicker matrix to bond to; thus producing an active—”
“Right… I shouldn’t have asked,” Leo said, trying to filter plain English out of the technical terms. “As long as it works, it’s good enough for us.”
“So, you’re saying we have to catch the brain part of the Kraang, and, what, squeeze the Kraang juice out of it?” Mikey asked.
“I’ll get the orange juicer,” Raph volunteered with a laugh. Leo made a disgusted face at him.
“Mhh, I’d prefer to leave them alive. All I need from them is a little blood,” Donnie said.
“I don’t see why,” Raph snarked. “Every time we turn one of those Kraang robots to scrap, the brain just runs off and gets a new body to attack us with. Trust me, they’ve got hundreds of ‘em, just sitting in a closet at TCRI.”
“Because we’re supposed to show mercy,” Leo countered.
“Yeah, lot of good that’s done us… When have the Kraang ever showed us any mercy?”
“Raphael,” a commanding voice rang from above them.
“Sensei,” Raph acknowledged, bowing his head.
The ninja master stepped down the benches to speak to all of them. “It takes more strength to be merciful than it does to be cruel. Keep in mind that your enemies may never have experienced mercy. That which you show them may be the first they know. ”
“Yeah, but, Sensei…” Raphael complained, “I don’t if you’ve noticed, but we’re in a war here… the Kraang are trying to take over our whole planet! D’you really think it’s time to show the Kraang mercy?”
“A single stone may change the course of a river. A single act of mercy may have far-reaching consequences.” Having had his say, the rat mutant bowed to them and walked off to the kitchen.
Raph looked a bit miffed at the wisdom, muttering under his breath as Splinter left. “I don’t see why we need to be showing mercy when they’re the ones gaining the upper hand…”
Leonardo ignored him and continued. “We’re probably best off not going back to TCRI just yet. That hornet’s nest is probably still stirred up.”
“I hate hornets!” Mikey added. “Hornets and Kraang: Nature’s bastards…”
“I’m not sure ‘nature’ even applies to the Kraang…” Donnie whispered to him.
Mikey mulled this over. “Okay… Hornets and Kraang: Bastards.”
Donnie considered for a moment. “I like it.” Mikey beamed proudly.
“Focus…” Leo growled at them. “We’re probably best off striking them here,” he pointed to a dot on Donnie’s laptop, which displayed their map of known Kraang facilities. “It’s always been active every time we’ve been there, but not so heavily-populated we can’t get away easily.”
After a little stealthy scavenging and borrowing in the afternoon, they were prepared. They arrived at the Kraang outpost lugging a fishing net, another “net” (fashioned out of a tennis racquet), a discarded cat carrier, and a lobster trap.
“Why do I always have to be the bait?” Michelangelo complained.
“Because you’re good at it,” Raph told him, “and next to Donnie, you can run the fastest.”
“Then why can’t Donnie do it?”
“Because, brainiac, I have to do the blood-drawing,” Donnie snapped at him. “Now go get over by the door.”
Mikey sulked a bit as he snuck to the front of the building. “Hmph… wonder where they’d get their bait if I wasn’t around.” He was just in time to see a handful of Kraang suits unloading the back of one of their unmarked white vans. He leapt down in front of them. “Yo, Kraang! Your mother was an Easy-Bake Oven!” he hollered, running around the corner.
Three of the Kraang followed him, the one in front proclaiming, “The one known as a turtle is mistaken; Kraang’s mother was not—“, at which point Raphael jabbed a sai through its head. He kicked the second suited robot into the wall of the building and cleaved the third apart with both sai. Leonardo pounced and scooped up the tentacled brain as it popped out of the robotic body of the first of Raph’s victim, and in the same motion, slammed it into the open lobster trap. Mikey caught the tennis-racquet net as Donnie tossed it to him and slammed it down around the second brain to free itself from its confines. The third brain ended up trapped, unseen, beneath its own robot body as it fell forward onto its stomach.
Donnie reached into the lobster trap, pinning the Kraang brain down with one hand and assessing where to stick a needle into it. The brain creature squalled and whimpered as it was pierced and Don drew its blood into the syringe, capping it and storing it in his belt. The others looked on as Donnie pulled out a small sucker from the other side of his belt and unwrapped it. “The hell is that for?” Raph asked.
“Preventing hypoglycemia, in case they get low blood sugar,” he said, popping the lollipop in the Kraang’s protesting mouth. Its eyes went wide. It stopped struggling and wrapped a pair of tentacles around the stick.
Raph let out a long-suffering sigh. “Okay, showing mercy is one thing, Donnie, but this is going way too far…”
“Huh,” Leo noticed. “It likes it…” He tried reaching into the cage to pull the sucker away from the brain and got his hand whipped with a tentacle for his trouble. “Ow!” He withdrew his hand, shaking it.
Donnie finished drawing blood from the brain in the cat carrier, also sticking a sucker in its mouth. “Okay, Mikey… ready to go get us two more?”
Mikey struck an exaggerated pose and with a low, gravelly voice declared, “I’m Baitmaaaan!” He disappeared back around the corner. His voice carried back to the others. “Yoo-hoo, Kraang! Come and get—ulp!” An alarm sounded from within the facility. The young turtle came hauling back around the side of the building. “Aaaaa! Laser-bazooka!” he yelled at Raph, clinging to the wall above him, ready to strike the Kraang Mikey was supposed to be leading.
“Laser-bazooka?!” Raph repeated. A beam of pink energy the size of his head shot past him as Mikey skidded around the corner. The wall of the warehouse behind them exploded. “Holy fuck… Laser-bazooka!” he screamed, dropping down and following Mikey toward a more sheltered position behind the building. “We gotta go!” he announced.
Donnie protested. “I don’t have enough blood yet!” He spied one of the downed Kraang suit-bots, rocking back and forth, but otherwise motionless.
“We’ll get it somewhere else! We’ve gotta get out of here!” Leo shouted over more weaponfire. He peeked around the far corner of the building, hoping to use it as their escape route, but his glance was met with a nearly solid wall of blasts from Kraang energy weapons. Even Leo didn’t dare to try finding a path through that. “They’ve got us pinned down!”
Ignoring Leo, Donatello sprung the catch on his bo, loosing the blade. He stabbed it into the downed android’s shoulder, dragging it to him along the ground. He flipped it over, mashing a hand down on the brain creature immediately. Uncapping a new syringe with his teeth, he pinched a vein on its right hemisphere and stuck the needle in, drawing a few cc’s of blood from it, as much as he dared. Then he jammed a sucker in its mouth and tossed it in the cat carrier with the first brain. The carrier’s first occupant rushed the newcomer, trying to take its treat. The newcomer was having none of it, though, and the two Kraang started slap-fighting over the candy with their tentacles.
Donnie checked the levels of the three syringes of lavender-colored blood he had collected. It might be enough… but it also might not. He needed one more “volunteer” for his little blood drive to be sure…
Part of the wall exploded as the bazooka-beam annihilated the corner of the Kraang’s own building. Donnie eeped and scooted further from the corner, backing into Mikey, Raph, and Leo as they backed away from the laser show that was getting closer to rounding the opposite edge of the building.
“Okay… who wants to die shot full of lots of little holes, and who wants to die from one big one? ‘Cause that’s looking like our only two options at this point…” Raph said, sounding panicky.
Mikey let out a whimper. “I love you guys!”
From the bazooka side, a Kraang android hit the wall, followed by another. On the other side, a dozen bots were suddenly crunched into a heap, in various states of functionality. One droid, with a still-functioning weapon, attempted to fire on its attacker, but a handlike wing tore the gun away. Several brains popped out of the pile and went scurrying as Rock rammed the pile again with a hefty shoulder for good measure. Mikey grabbed his tennis-racquet net, and beat it at the ground, trying to catch one of the speedy creatures as they ran by him. A gum-booted foot appeared before him.
“The Cavalry has arrived! You know, I really expected more from a bunch of ninjas. I guess hand-to-hand combat doesn’t work so well against lasers, does it?” Cav pounced on one of the brains as it zigzagged its way near. He opened his claws and let it scurry a few feet away before capturing it in his claws again. “Hmm, these are fun…” he mused.
“Cav!” Leo said, surprised. “Where did you guys come from?”
“Saw your little light show from several blocks away. Thought we’d check it out,” the cat replied, letting the brain go and catching it again, tail swishing around behind him. “Good thing we did…”
“I’ll say,” Leo admitted. “The bazooka was a new one on us…”
Donnie bent down toward Cav’s catch. “if I may…”
“By all means,” Cav said, squashing the Kraang brain down with one finger as Donnie poked it and drew its blood. “How’s your girl? I’m surprised she isn’t with you.”
“She’s had… an episode,” he replied, picking his words carefully. “Master Splinter is watching over her. This, hopefully, will be the last component of her cure.” He held the light purple blood aloft so that Cav could see it.
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Of Hearts and Shells: 50 Shades of Green