Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Fan Fiction ❯ Bad Places III: Ruin ❯ Chapter 3

Part 3

Metallic clanging and the whining of machinery woke Leonardo up. For a moment he didn't know where he was. Sleeping on the couch wasn't all that unusual, but not with the lights on and never when his brothers were awake. He moved to sit up and hissed as he pulled the wound at the base of his neck.

"Relax," came his youngest brother's voice. "Don't move too much."

Ignoring him, Leonardo sat up, albeit more carefully, and looked over the back of the couch. Donatello and Raphael stood on opposite sides of the stream and carefully lowered a section of iron gridwork that suspiciously resembled one of the grates the city used to block off large pipes. They would need at least two more sections to cover the stream and it was completely vulnerable until they finished, but he felt a little relief that they were working on it.

"How long was I asleep?" he asked.

"Just a few hours," Mike said. "You should go back to sleep. Splinter stitched that gash back together and bandaged it up, but you shouldn't move too much."

"I'll rest later," he said. "Could you get me the phone?"

"Huh?" Mike paused, staring at his brother. "Um, Casey's already on his way over here, if that's what--"

"Dammit, I told him..." Leo started, but he cut himself off. "No, I guess he'd be safer over here. But he's not who I'm calling."

Mike fished the phone from beneath the mess of computer and satellite equipment Donatello kept mounted beside the televisions. Dusting it off, he tossed it to his brother who caught it in mid-air. As Mike watched with growing curiosity, Leonardo dialed a long string of numbers before listening to a pre-recorded message, and then typing in another set of numbers that Mike quickly realized was a password. After several minutes of doing this, Mike started to wonder who Leo knew that stayed hidden within so many security measures.

As he finished the last password, Leo tilted his head and hesitated. He had no idea what came after this.

"You have reached a secure line," a woman's voice said over the phone. "State your name, rank and the officer you wish contact."

"Name, Leonardo," he answered in a low voice, wishing he'd done this while alone in his room. Michelangelo looked like he thought his brother had become delirious from blood loss. "Rank...um, ninja. I need to speak with Felix Erickson."

A long moment of silence passed, and he hoped he hadn't done something extremely stupid. He remembered Chanta saying that no one in the government would care about a family of mutants other than to make sure they were paying their taxes, but he was taking the word of a woman who'd been rather high on painkillers and Stockman's genetic tampering at the time. He especially didn't want a problem in front of Mike, who was looking at him in a mixture of shock and worry.

"Your request has been approved," the woman said. "Please stand by."

He let out a breath and waited. After a moment he heard a familiar voice on the line.

"Only one person I know with that rank," Felix said, laughing. " Man, I can't believe you actually called the D.O.D."

On hearing his voice, Leonardo visibly relaxed. Three months of fighting side by side in hell and watching each other's back left a lasting camaraderie that a year's absence could not erase. "Yeah, about halfway through I started wondering if this was really a good idea. What would've happened if I hung up?"

"The number'd be tracked and you'd have a bunch of men in black at your doorstep in ten minutes," Felix said. "Even if you are underground. Now, not that I mind hearing from an old friend, but I doubt this is a social call."

"You mean you haven't heard?" Leo asked.

"Heard what?"

"It's...no, you won't believe me. Got a tv nearby?"

"Yeah..." Felix's voice turned wary. "I've been so busy arranging...well, can't go over it on the phone, but let's just say we've been busy down here."

"Turn on the national news. And make sure you're sitting down."

A few seconds passed. Felix must have set his volume high, Leo thought, listening to the faint sound of the news reporter and the repeated clip of monsters running through the streets. When he didn't get a reply, he started to worry.

"You still there?" he asked.

"...yeah," Felix said slowly. "Is this...I mean, is it--? "

"It's for real," Leo said, understanding what he meant. "I was there when it happened."

"You wouldn't happen to know how they got out, would you?"

"I was hoping you could tell me," Leo said. "I never got to see what happened to all of Stockman's equipment. Did your people keep it?"

"No, I watched them blow it up." Felix audibly sighed and leaned back hard in his chair. "God...those things running lose in New York--hey, are you all right? Those things aren't moving around underground, are they?"

"I'm fine so far," he said, ignoring Mike's snort. "Just a little chewed up. It's harder to fight them in the open. Felix...it's not just breeders that came through. I had to kill a demon up on a roof."

His friend muttered a long string of profanities. "Leo...stay underground. Let the army handle this. I'll check, make sure the guard's been mobilized. They can handle it better than you can, especially after my old debriefing's brought up again."

"To be honest," Leo said with a smile, "I wasn't exactly calling to ask for suggestions. I needed to know if you'd, I dunno, brought some of these things through and accidentally lost a handful of 'em."

"You thought we might've done this?" Felix asked, sounding offended. "Turn monsters loose on Americans? Are you nuts? Okay, on the Russians, maybe..."

"No," Leo said, laughing, but he sobered as he continued. "Because if you didn't do this, then that means I didn't kill him."

"Who? That Stockman guy? I saw you put a sword through him. If he ain't dead from that, what the hell would it take?"

"You have no idea how hard it is to kill that man." He sighed and leaned back, closing his eyes. A sudden thought struck him. "Wait, you had a debriefing on these things? And they believed you?"

"Well, the dead demon on the floor kinda backed me up," Felix said. "Had to go through a shitload of counseling, though, and--aw hell, look, I gotta go. I got another call waiting and I bet anything it's brass calling about this."

"Yeah, no prob. Later." He hung up the phone and realized that he actually hoped he didn't have to talk to Felix again. If the two of them spoke again or had to meet, that meant that the situation in New York would be even worse. Though if he was honest with himself, the situation could only get worse.

"Okay, now you're gonna rest," Mike said forcefully, taking the phone. "That wound won't get better if you keep moving around."

Leonardo glared at him but settled back down on the couch, listening as Raphael and Donatello worked to lower another section of iron bars over the stream. A few minutes later the sound of metal clanging on the floor was replaced by that of a welding torch. He didn't know how they expected him to rest with all of that noise, but as he closed his eyes and relaxed, he felt his brother lay a blanket over him so they obviously expected him to fall asleep somehow.

He must have been more tired than he thought, and his body wanted to rest even if his mind didn't. If it wasn't for his anxiety, he might have slept despite the noise. In their past fights, they always knew who their enemies were. Now he wasn't sure. If he was right and Stockman was still alive, then that meant he probably had another enemy since Stockman rarely did anything on his own. But who?

Even more frightening, at least to him, was knowing that he'd heard the strange electric static in the air when April couldn't. His hearing was far more sensitive than hers, but even so, the hum had been deafening. If she couldn't hear it, that meant it was more than just a sound. He knew he should tell Donatello about it, but he didn't want to know how far gone he really was. His brother's gene therapy would never change him back to normal, and at least it kept him from becoming a mindless killer, but he still didn't know exactly how much of a monster he'd become and how much of himself he'd retained. Thinking about it made him feel sick, but for now he didn't have to think about it. Behind the couch, the welding and clanging finally stopped, and to his relief he drifted off to sleep.

Across the lair, Raphael helped finish weld the second section of gridwork into place and then stood, stretching as he looked over their work. More than half of the stream was covered, but the rest of it was wide enough to allow a fairly large monster through. He sighed as he wondered where they would find another section to close it up properly, and he dreaded the thought of having to search when they could run into a pack of Stockman's things without warning, but there was no help for it. With one brother already injured, they couldn't afford a fight.

Why did it have to be monsters? If the enemy was anything else, normal humans, ninjas, aliens, they could get by without needing their big brother to hurt himself even more keeping them safe, but these particular monsters, though weak, survived on sheer speed and claws. After his prolonged stay in Stockman's game, his brother's further mutation made him the best suited to fight feeders and screamers and demons.

As Raphael left Donatello to finish up what he could with the scant material they had, he quietly walked towards the group of televisions and couches that made up their living room. His youngest brother sat in the recliner watching the news, having been forbidden from changing the channel if he got bored. But Raphael noticed that Mike kept a close eye on their brother, making sure the wound didn't reopen in his sleep.

The worst problem with being the defacto leader, Raphael had decided, was that he never knew when the weight of the clan would fall back on his shoulders, along with all the responsibilities that came with the job. Keeping his older brother from hurting himself trying to protect someone else was just one of the hardest tasks.

First things first, he thought. He needed to get Leo somewhere a little more quiet to rest, and he needed to do it without waking him up. His first instinct was to ask Splinter for help, but his master was busy in the kitchen with April. Deciding he could live with the overly long explanation if he asked Donatello to help with a sedative, he looked over his shoulder only to find his brother disappearing into his private work area. Curious, he followed.

Normally they all tried to avoid Donatello's lab. Dozens of computers in various states of disassembly, spare wires and tools decorated the floor and larger pieces of equipment and parts lay scattered around the work bench like furniture. His brother sat on something that resembled an engine while he scanned several sheets of paper as they came out from the printer.

"Hey, Don, got a minute?"

"Yeah...sure...just a sec'." Donatello pulled the last sheet free and studied it intently. "What on earth...this doesn't make any sense."

Raphael looked over his shoulder, but the multicolored double helixes and strings of letters meant nothing to him. "What is all that? DNA?"

"Yes, from the past year and a half..." Donatello spread the report out in front of him, lining the pages in such a way as the helixes flowed together. "Specifically, yours and Mike's and Leo's. But it doesn't make sense. Look..." He traced his finger along one helix. "This is Leo's. See how it blends with this new strain? The two come together almost seamlessly over a couple of months, and then the new strain starts to take over. You can even see where the injections have been making it recede."

Only because the strain Donatello mentioned was colored black against the blue helix could Raphael follow him. "It hasn't gone away, though."

"No, it hasn't...and he's been away from Stockman's pocket dimension for so long, it should have. At least, given his amount of exposure to the breeder's raw genetic material. But look here." Donatello pointed to the other two helixes on the page. "These belong to you and Mike, and even though you weren't in there as long as Leo was, your sample gives me enough time to calculate a rate of absorption and integration."

Raphael frowned. "What?"

Sighing as only one who is forced to dumb down his conversations can, Donatello glared at his brother. "You know, this isn't rocket science. If you would just pay attention when I explain something the first time--"

"Sparring with a sword or a sai ain't rocket science either," Raphael said, narrowing his eyes. "But I recall me an' Leo having to explain to someone over and over how to use 'em, and he still hasn't quite got the hang of it yet."

Donatello glared but he didn't sigh again, either. "The monster part of him absorbed faster into his system and affected him faster and harder than either of you two. Even compensating for his longer exposure time, my most extreme models show him mutating several years from now, and by then he should have fought it off without needing injections."

"So you're saying--"

"I'm saying that given what we know about his three months previous exposure, he still shouldn't have been affected so much or so fast."

Damn. Raphael closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Damn. Donatello didn't suspect anything, but during the past year Raphael had developed a knack for noticing when Leo, who scrupulously didn't lie, was nevertheless hiding something. He didn't say anything, not yet, not before he had a chance to ask Leonardo himself and probably scream at him for acting stupid yet again.

"Maybe it was just that dive he took at the very end," he said, referring to when Leonardo had fallen with a demon into a deep pool of blood. Of course, he still hadn't told anyone that his brother's dive had been suicidal, but Leo had enough problems without dredging up the past.

"Maybe..." Donatello looked unconvinced and flipped the pages over again.

Raphael watched him work for a moment before remembering what he came in for, and now that Donatello was working, it took quite awhile to convince him to look up from his research. Especially when it was just to give Leo a sedative when he was already sleeping. Even more so when Raphael admitted that he was not going to use a needle if Donatello was around to do it. By the time he had his elder brother safely upstairs and out of the way, Casey had arrived downstairs and dinner was about to be served. With one more glance to make sure his brother was resting comfortably, he turned off the light and went down to the rest of his family.

"So there we were on the roof," April said, sitting on the couch as she waved her hands to illustrate, precariously balancing dinner on her lap. "And Leo gave me his sword and told me to stay ready 'cause it was gonna take both of us to kill it. And then suddenly it attacked and we both jumped to either side of it--"

Part of his brain noticed that the demon seemed to get bigger and faster each time she told the story, while both she and Leonardo grew more daring and cohesive, working together like partners. When he listened to her, though, he couldn't help smiling. Whatever fear she'd had of Leonardo before the fight was gone now. Maybe it was seeing that he was as vulnerable as she was or splashing a little blood on her face that did it. Either way, he liked seeing her unafraid of his sibling again.

However, for most of the evening, he wondered what his brother was hiding. No, what his brother had hidden for over a year. Which was odd, come to think of it. Leonardo normally didn't hide things, or at least Raphael hoped he didn't, and hiding something for such a long time meant that whatever secret Leo was keeping was probably pretty bad.

And considering everything that Leonardo had done in the past year, from nearly going insane to ripping out Shredder's heart to half-turning into a monster, the thought that his brother could still have one more secret scared him.

TBC...