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Chapter 1 – The One She Broke
It was the first time she noticed he wasn’t next to her.
She’d been waiting for Donatello to come sit beside her, watch the movie, point out the scientific inaccuracies, pick apart the plot, all while giving her that bashful grin…
…and he didn’t.
He sat cross-legged on the floor well behind the pit, pecking away at his laptop on some project or other. Normally, he would simply continue to work on whatever it was in the presence of his brothers, next to her.
She just wanted to check on him, especially after…
“Don? You okay?”
It was only there for a second, but she felt it from him, clear as day. He flinched when she spoke, a bolt of fear running up his spine.
“Oh, yes… I’m fine…” he said, pulling on a facade she could see right through. “I just… need some more concentration for this. I’ll be in my lab.”
He rose and left faster than the casualness he was trying to portray allowed, failing to meet her searching eyes.
He’d stopped seeking her out, she noticed as the weeks rolled by. He’d become distant, disengaged. More often than not, he found some reason to cower in his lab, or be—pretend to be—working on a project that was too dangerous for her to be nearby. She nearly bumped into him once, coming around a blind corner in the sewers on her way to the lair. “Don!” she’d shouted, partly out of joy and partly out of shock and trying not to crash into him with an armload of groceries. She saw him so infrequently, and was so happy to see him. Clearly, though, the feeling was not mutual, as the genius’s aura shot with intense anxiety and he backpedaled from her.
Her incredulous look demanded some explanation. “P-Pavlovian response… heh… Nothing to worry about. It’ll extinctify… eventually…”
She frowned at him. “I know who Pavlov is, Don. We need to talk.”
He nodded, taking two of the bags from her as they walked. “You’re right, we do.”
But neither of them knew where to start for several long moments. They simply continued walking until they reached the lair, where Don took the rest of the food from her. “Well… I’m glad we had this talk! Now, if you’ll excuse me…” he stated pertly and made to scarper off to his lab.
“Donnie!” she snapped at him and felt that chill run through him again through her empathic link, then dread as he turned back around. And fright. “I never figured you for a coward,” she said tartly.
“I’m sorry, April… I just… I can’t.”
“Come on, Don. Talk to me,” she coaxed. “You said you were fine. You’re not fine.”
“I was at the time… I could just brush it off. But the more I think about it… the more nightmares…” He shook his head. “I know it’s irrational, that Za’noran’s power is out of you now, but I can’t help feeling like…”
“…like I’ll do it again,” she finished for him. He winced, and she knew she was correct. “I’m so sorry, Donnie. I promise, I’ll never—“
“But you did,” he cut her off in a sad whisper. “Despite all my pleading to let me take the crystal… You let her take you over, and when my life was hanging in the balance, seventy-four feet in the air, you wouldn’t even fight for me. You let her tear me molecule from molecule,” he said so low she could barely hear. “Nerve from nerve. And it HURT, April… a brief agony before nothingness, but that… that was the most pain I’ve experienced in my life… before she scattered me across the city…”
Tears rimmed her eyes. “I put it back…. I put it all back, I put you back together!”
He stared at the floor. “Not all of it.”
April’s heart flew into her throat. “What? What did I miss?!” she gawped. “Tell me, maybe I can still fix it!”
The lanky turtle shook his head. “You can’t fix this. You can’t fix broken trust. You can’t put the faith you had in someone back the way it was.”
She felt her heart fall into the pit of her stomach and sit there like a leaden lump. “Donnie…” she tried, but a word beyond ‘sorry’ that expressed the regret and heartache she felt didn’t come to her, and she stood there gawping, still searching for one.
“I can’t be around you right now, April. I can’t keep living with this, can’t work with it hanging over my head. So I keep thinking… maybe…” His eye caught hers for a bare second. “…maybe we should see other people.” He glanced away again with a faked laugh. “Well… prospects are pretty slim for me… you should see other people.”
Shock nailed her to the floor, and the dejection she felt flowing off him in waves pierced straight through her. She knew all he’d gone through to get her attention, to get her to see past the mutant exterior. He’d been clumsy and awkward and had a few missteps, but she’d come around, encouraged his advances. His discovery that she was a mutant gave them something closely in common, and brought her hope that maybe this was the right path for them. Their relationship developed from a tiny bud to a nearly open bloom…
And then she’d snapped it off at the stem and trampled it. For her to hurt him so deeply that that pipe dream was now cast to the wind… it broke her heart, utterly. Tears streamed down her cheeks unchecked, and her voice was unsteady when she tried to speak again. “Donnie… I…”
Don’s posture slumped so low he was nearly shorter than her, the emotions killing him as well. “I hope you find someone that suits you.” He flexed his fists as if steeling his resolve, then took a breath and marched stalwartly into his lab without so much as a backward glance at her.
She tried to say something to stop him, but all that came out was an ugly croak, and when the lab door closed behind him, she turned and bolted from the lair, blinded by her tears. None of his brothers tried to stop her, meaning either they were just as shocked as she, or they’d already known this had been coming down the pike. Either way, she was left alone in her heartbreak, and for that, she was grateful. If she was going to ugly cry, no one needed to see it.
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Chapter 2 – The One Who Witnessed
Casey handed her one of the two blue raspberry slushes he held in his hands and plunked himself unceremoniously beside her on the bench. “So what’s with the face, Red? You’re looking bluer than this stuff,” he angled, taking a long pull from his own drink.
April shot him a stricken look, about to cry at any moment, but she felt it from him as well… that same tendril of fear gripping him if she turned her eye on him too fast or looked at him too harshly. She couldn’t blame him. Or any of them, for that matter. “Donnie… broke up with me,” she told him, then quickly clarified, so he wouldn’t get any ideas, “After I blew him up, he’s… scared of me.”
She expected the boy to jump at the chance to make a pass at her, to extol his virtues over his mutant rival, but he only let out a long sigh and replied, “Yeah.” April tried to look him in the eye, but, like Don, he kept avoiding her direct gaze. “Don’t get me wrong… Watchin’ you kick the Foot mutants’ butt was awesome…” he said with a grin, but it quickly subsided. “But…seein’ you blast Donnie to space dust was…intense.”
“Donnie’s mad because I didn’t fight her hard enough. Za’noran was just so powerful… I couldn’t hardly move outside of her grip on me. Don wanted me to fight when my whole body was being jerked around like a puppet!”
“And you shouldda.”
April jerked back a bit, stunned at this declaration. “How?!”
“Any way you could. Tooth and nail. Get pissed. Throw her off her game, and once she’s off-balance, keep hittin’ her, hard as you could. Take back what’s yours, ‘cause otherwise…” He stopped to take a long slurp of his drink, until the straw rattled with the lack of liquid, then he popped the lid off and dumped the remaining ice on the sidewalk in front of him. He kicked out with one oversized teenage foot, scattering the little ice chips across the pavement, where they melted into a thousand little wet circles in the autumn sun. “…she dusts everything you love.”
They sat silently as the tiny circles shrank and faded to nothing.
“You think… I mean… She… was goin’ after Raph next. But after that… would itta been me you poofed, ya think?” April stared wordlessly back at him, aghast. “Or would I have even made a blip on her radar? Just some kid raging against the machine with a hockey stick… We were nothing but bugs to her.” He thumped his heel on the concrete to knock some remaining slush from it. “Is that all we are, Red? Ants, for some cosmic power bigger and stronger’n us to come wipe us out with a giant magnifying glass?”
She stared numbly. “I hope not.” Seeking comfort, she turned, leaning her face against his arm. She was startled when a moment later, she was grasped gently by the shoulders and pushed away. “Casey?”
He loosed his grip, but wouldn’t meet her gaze. “Look… with all that’s happened, I don’t wanna be your fallout guy…”
Her brow wrinkled. “You mean my fallback guy, right?”
His shoulders lifted lazily. “That too. Point is, Donnie was your favoritest thing in the world, and you, like, atomized him right in front of us.” That little ribbon of fear curled itself around him again, but this time, it was also doused in melancholy. “And… if he wasn’t worth enough to you to fight for,” he paused, shooting her a sad but charming grin, “…what kind of chances have I got?”
“Casey, no…” April tried to explain, but he simply rose and jammed his hands in his pockets, stalking off.
“I’ll see ya around, Red.”
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It was hard for him to not notice her picking at her food. “April? Something wrong?” Kirby asked.
“No,” she said miserably in an obvious lie and continued moving peas from one side of her plate to the other.
“Problems at school?”
“No,” she repeated.
“No, you wouldn’t be so upset about a low mark… “ he reasoned. “Boy trouble?”
She ignored him, stabbing at her Salisbury steak, though she sighed distractedly. Kirby didn’t press. He knew she’d open up in a moment or two.
“Donnie… broke up with me… He says he can’t be around me right now…” she said slowly, holding back tears as best as she could. “And Casey doesn’t want to get involved… After I blew Donnie up… they’re both scared of me.”
“Oh,” he managed, trying to keep it as neutral as possible, though he knew the dread she undoubtedly felt. Since the incident, there had been a malaise of guilt floating about her. The best he could do for her was to act normal, calm.
Their world had gotten incredibly complicated over the last year, involving mutants, ninja, aliens, and himself being turned into a bat for a time. Kirby was a cautious man—one had to be in New York City—but he never would have expected the heroic creatures his daughter had befriended, never expected to be mutated simply by stepping outside with her one night, never expected the revelation that she was a mutant herself. That was the one that hit home the most; it was disturbing and shocking to learn sixteen years after their daughter’s birth and ten after his wife’s disappearance that she’d had prior dealings with the Kraang.
It had come as a shock to all of them when April presented signs of psychic ability and, when dropped into a vat of the mutagenic glop, no mutation affected her. Donatello, upon looking into the matter, discovered her Kraang mutation, and the only explanation—now quite evident to Kirby—was the DNA passed down from her mother.
At the root, Kirby knew his wife’s disappearance had been an abduction… it made sense that the Kraang would want one of their experiments back, especially if they wanted Renee as a power source as much as they had wanted April. But there was a part of him that resented her leaving him to raise their daughter alone, never providing so much as a clue about things that could affect April, leaving April with questions that Kirby had no answers for. Leaving her to discover her telepathic abilities with no explanation for their source or extent or how to manage them. Leaving her unprepared for an invasion via addiction and the eventual, albeit thankfully temporary, destruction of her closest friend. At some level, he was absolutely livid with his wife for deserting them and leaving April to figure everything out on her own, and the wounds inflicted upon his daughter and, he was sure, all of her friends.
With a sigh, Kirby rotated his own pile of peas around. “Communication is always best—” he started, only to have April cut him off.
“I tried! Donnie’s traumatized over it, and Casey thinks he’s a bug.”
“He thinks he’s a bug?”
“Not literally. Like he doesn’t matter to me. He said if I poofed Donnie even though I loved him, where did that put him in the scheme of things?” She moved a bit of meat around on her plate, then set her fork down completely, unable to stomach a meal while her mind remained so distraught. “And they’re right. If I hadn’t been able to force out Za’noran, I could’ve killed all of them. Then you, and everyone in New York…” Her breathing increased as a wave of panic overtook her. “If I hadn’t been able to put Donnie’s atoms back together—!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa now… Stop,” he said, grasping her hand. “There’s no use feeling guilt over events that didn’t happen. And for what did happen… if they’re truly your friends, they’ll understand and forgive you.”
She stared at the floor. “Didn’t seem like it.” Her father gave her hand a pat.
“Give it time. They both need a while to process things and heal. And, it’s possible that neither of them feels that they can do that healing in the same environs that they were wounded in.”
“Around me,” she understood that to mean, and Kirby nodded in confirmation. She blew out a long huff of frustrated acceptance and pulled her hand from him. “Guess I’m going it solo for a while…”
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She waited until a time when she knew the guys would be out on patrol before showing up at the lair. It made her visit a late one, but it wasn’t an ungodly hour, and she couldn’t risk the guys, most of all Donnie, being there. She wasn’t even sure if she should have come to talk with her sensei; surely his feelings on the matter ran as deeply as any of his sons’. But… she couldn’t put off seeing Splinter or any of the guys forever, and the more the thoughts and memories niggled at her, the more she knew she should ask Splinter to help her sort them out. She knew he wouldn’t be mad at her, or at least, not that mad… she thought. He was so level and calm, so very rarely more than stern or abrupt, even when his four teenage sons tested his patience. What if he was, though? she thought, as she silently crossed the dojo floor toward Master Splinter’s chambers. Za’noran had gotten the best of her and used her to atomize one of his sons. Even though she’d brought him back, she could have destroyed Donnie forever. Splinter’s sons were all that he had… Would he ever truly forgive her if she ended up killing Donatello?Her feet stopped several steps back from the sliding shoji doors. Maybe this was a bad idea, a bad time. Maybe she would come back another—“April. Did you wish to see me?” Splinter’s voice came from the other side of the doors, and he slid them open, peering down at her with a level expression.She stifled a sigh. No backing out now. “Yes, Sensei,” she managed, but her voice caught, so she didn’t elaborate why.“Come,” the rat said gently. “Let us have some tea.” April stared into her cup in the dim room, having no desire to actually drink the bitter brew. She sighed. “I really messed things up with Donnie, Sensei. I don’t think things will ever be the same between us again. I said I was sorry… but I don’t think he believes me.”The rat peered down his long snout at her knowingly. “An apology must be more than words. One must attempt to repair the damage, and act in good faith in order to rebuild the broken trust.”“I don’t see how I can do that, if Donnie doesn’t even want to see me anymore…”“It will take time, as all wounds require time to heal. Have patience. When you have finished with your tea, I wish to show you something.”She hurriedly blew the steam from the cup and sloshed the liquid into her mouth, coughing and sputtering as it scalded her tongue and throat. Splinter could not hold back a slight grin. “Time will also make one’s tea more palatable. Rushing to action at times does more harm than good.”April returned him a wan look, blowing into her cup until the remainder was cool enough, and downed it. She set the cup down in triumph as if she’d just downed a shot of something much stronger than brewed herbs. “What was it you wanted to show me? Is it a new technique?”The rat gave her a slight nod, both pleased and amused at her enthusiasm. “A technique, yes, though not one of ninjutsu. Pick up your cup, and bring it here near the candle.”“Oh… okay…”“Look closely. What do you see?”She squinted as she slowly rotated the tiny bowl, until her eyes caught a quick flash. “Oh! There was something gold!” Turning it toward the light, she found it again. “There’s…more than one… or, a line!” She traced the gold downward to a point, where it headed back up to the cup’s brim, outlining a small triangle, with another line that branched off to the side, this one forming an irregular-sided trapezoid. Curious, she flipped the cup over, and found the same golden lines networking not only those two segments, but the entire cup. “How did they get the gold in it?” she asked.Splinter took a long sip from his own cup. “This tea-set is particularly precious to me. It was handed down to me from my grandfather, and he from his. I had put it in a high spot, atop a bookcase, to keep it from harm. Unfortunately, when one has four wild and curious young boys, things put in high places do not stay there.”April pictured the scene in her mind: the four miniature mutant turtles climbing and shaking the bookshelf until, turtle-topheavy, the whole thing tipped, spilling shelves, tea-set and tots to the floor. The imagined crash brought her back to reality. “Oh no…”“Indeed,” the rat nodded. “Fortunately, none of my sons were harmed, but my antiques did not fare so well.”“You… put them back together, like a puzzle!” she deduced. “But, with gold instead of glue?”“Almost. It is lacquer and resin, infused with gold dust. The technique is called kintsugi. It teaches us that though a thing may be broken, it can be mended to become even more beautiful, a philosophy based on optimism. Clever Donatello found a book about it on our weekly trip to the library… after hours, of course. We were supposed to be reading The Gruffalo,” he recalled with amused annoyance. “While the other boys helped in puzzling the pieces together, he also developed the resin, and scavenged the gold, from old computers, of all things. He was four.”“Four! That’s Donnie, though… Ahead of the curve.” She continued looking at the cup, at all the joined pieces and the shimmering lines bonding them. Hundreds of tiny flecks, sparkling in the dim… lifted and carried on the breeze on a New York night… Almost like… A loud gasp escaped her and she nearly rebroke the teacup with the force she slammed it down on the table.“I-I’ve gotta go!” she said hastily, standing and giving a quick bow. “Thanks for the tea!” She flung the shoji open, stepped out and threw it closed again, her running footsteps carrying through the empty lair. The turnstiles creak-thunked, and the steps faded into the tunnels.Splinter listened until his sharp ears no longer heard her. “Mmmh,” he mumbled to himself, sighed, and poured himself more tea.
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Ch 5 – The Ones Like Her“O’Neil! To what do we owe the pleasure?” the snake-eyed girl asked smugly as the Mutanimals’ security system unlocked and admitted the redhead.“Hey, Karai,” April returned. “Is Slash around? I… kind of wanted to ask him something."“Ooh, thinking of upgrading to a larger model turtle?” Shinigami teased, sliding over from the array of monitors in a rolling chair while continuing to paint her nails a dark violet.A blush rose to April’s cheeks. “Nothing like that. I just wanted to see what he thought Raphael’s reaction to something would be before I ask him.”“Well, afraid you’re out of luck there,” Karai informed her, striding a way off with her back to her. “I sent the boys off on patrol for the night so we could have girls’ night in.”“You should stay!” Shinigami insisted. “We were going to play ‘Apples to Apples.’ It’ll be more fun with four.”Karai jerked her head over her shoulder at the final member of the team approaching from the back rooms. “Of course, if you’d rather speak to the other resident Raphael expert…”April bonked herself in the forehead with her palm. “Y’gytgba, er, Mona Lisa! Of course!”“Greetings, April. Is something amiss with Raphael?”“Oh! No, no… nothing’s wrong with Raph. Thank goodness,” she added lowly.“I am glad. But something troubles you?”Was it that obvious? Apparently she needed to work on that ‘masking one’s emotions’ thing Leo was on about… She supposed she didn’t have a great poker-face. She sighed.“I was going to ask Slash, since he’s known Raphael longer, but maybe you’d know … I wanted to know what kind of reaction he’d have if I asked him to talk with me about… what I did to Donnie. And… almost to Raph, too.”A concerned scowl crossed the Salamandrian’s face. “And what did you do to Donatello? Rakka, rakka.”April blinked for a moment, unprepared to be the one to break the news of her own deed, and the guilt that came with it. “No one told you?” She paused a moment to take a calming breath. “I… blew him up.”Y’gythgba drew her head back in shock at the news, while a snort and a peal of laughter issued from the raven-haired girl. “That is one way to get rid of a clingy boyfriend!”April glared at her. “It’s not funny!”The Salamandrian, meanwhile, dropped into a battle stance. “You have killed Donatello? And you have nearly killed my Raphael?!”“No! I mean, yes, but I brought him back to life, and he’s fine… physically… And it wasn’t really me; I was being possessed by this crazy alien lady in the Aeon crystal, and she ripped Donnie’s atoms apart, and was twisting Raph’s limbs, and I… I couldn’t fight her, until Raphael said I should fight for Donnie, and I shattered the crystal before she could blow him up too. I used all my power and the last of what was in the Soul-Star shard to pull Donnie back together, so he’s all right.” She looked away, not wanting to meet anyone’s eyes. “Except…” She swallowed hard, holding back tears. “Except he doesn’t want to see me anymore. He said everything was okay at first, but he’d flinch every time I even looked his way! I think… he’s hurt, and scared. Of me, and what I… Za’noran… did to him.”The alien amphibian cautiously dropped her stance. “And Raphael?” she said single-mindedly.“He’s fine too… but you know how he is. He won’t say anything’s wrong even if it is.”Shaking her head, Mona Lisa released a tensely held breath.Shinigami giggled. “Boy, April, when you break up, you really break up!”“Shut up, Shini!” Karai snapped, grabbing the other girl’s floppy witch hat and throwing it in her face. “Just because you can’t keep a guy around for more than a month…”“It’s not my problem they can’t keep me entertained!” Shini replied with offendedly hooded eyes.Karai rolled her own, glancing back to the other two girls. “She goes through boyfriends like chewing gum… chews them up, and spits them out! I’m surprised she hasn’t gotten tired of Michelangelo yet.”The witch stuck her nose in the air. “Just for that, I’m keeping him around for at least another couple of months just to spite you. And is it my fault my boy-toys break so easily?”“It’s really no wonder. You play too rough with them.”“How would you know? You’ve settled for the first boy you met!”“Because I’m not done with mine yet! I’ve pretty much got Leo under my thumb, but he manages to surprise me now and then. We’re playing the long game.”“Courtship is not a game!” Y’gythgba put in, supremely offended. “What else would it be?” Shinigami countered, drooping as though her fun was being ruined.“Once a life-mate is chosen, one must devote themself wholeheartedly to that person’s well-being, on and off the battlefield! Rakka-rakka,” the salamander declared as if reciting from a book.Karai cast her a skeptical glance and turned to April. “She… hasn’t seen much of the dating field before Raphael, has she?”“Uh… I…” April stammered. Somehow Y’gythgba’s romantic life had never come up in their conversations… not that they’d had much time to gossip during their brief encounters in space.Shini tsked, smirking and throwing her hair over her shoulder. “How can you know what’s in all the chocolates if you don’t sample every one?”“This explains so much…” Karai drawled. “Especially why all of my chocolates have a bite taken out of them!” she said with a sideways glare at her bestie.“Trust me, April,” the witch continued without acknowledging her friend. “You are better off having split up. Now you can go find a new boy who doesn’t come with so much baggage!”April clenched her fists and stomped a foot. “Donnie is not disposable!”Mona joined her, looking pissed but valiantly holding back from unleashing her fury upon her allies. “Neither is Raphael! Come, April. We shall hold a more… mature council in my quarters.”Side by side, the two walked off. Shinigami wilted. “Ohhhh. Now we don’t have enough players…” April ducked under the amphibian’s strange-eyed gaze as though they were an accusation and picked at a loose thread in the shabby, patched together blanket immaculately spread over Mona Lisa’s cot. The salamander remained silent, waiting for her to say something first, so she led with, “I’m sorry.”The alien cocked her head. “Why do you apologize?”April blinked at her, wondering if something had gotten lost in translation. “For… for nearly getting your boyfriend killed!”“As you said, you were controlled by another, were you not?”“Well, yeah… but… I didn’t fight her… I couldn’t! I was off-balance, and scared… It took Leo and Mikey and Raph just to remind me what I was fighting to save!”“Yet you fought, in the end,” Mona said levelly.April’s eyes snapped up to hers. “What choice did I have? To just let her blast everybody to atoms? If I’d acted sooner, she wouldn’t have done that to Donnie!”“You feel guilt for things you failed to do, for your inadequacies.”“You say that like you’ve experienced something similar.”“All warriors do, at some time or another, rakka rakka. There are always choices made that turned out wrong. Poor decisions, misunderstood orders, inaction. We train so that we may avoid making these errors at a critical point in battle. But, O’Neil, you were not raised as a warrior, correct?”“I’ve been training with Master Splinter to be a kunoichi for two years!” April stated, offended that her training would come into question.Y’gythgba moved to the window, pulling the likewise tattered shade back from it to look out over the city. “Your world… is so different from ours. You were not raised from youth to become a fighter as we are. You are allowed to play, and create, and become entertainers, farmers, tax accountants!”The girl grunted a laugh. “We must seem so soft to you.”Mona made a glunk, glunk, glunk noise in her throat, which, given the amphibian’s face, April took to be a sign of amusement. “Indeed! But the softness of this world is what gives it beauty. On Salamandria, we are trained without choice into warriorhood from a very early age.” She dropped the curtain and looked April in the eye. “Despite that, there are still moments where we all fail. It is a fact we must all accept, that there is no such thing as a perfect soldier. April, if we, trained from our efthood, cannot reach perfection, do you expect you could do so in the span of two Terran years?” April remained silent, mulling this over, so Y’gythgba added, “Do not allow yourself to be burdened with guilt for a choice not taken.”April nodded, then turned a wry smile on her friend. “So what was your mistake?”“My…? Oh… uh…” the salamander dithered. “I, uh, dropped a box of solid fuel cells.”The girl gave her a skeptical look. “You dropped stuff?”The alien’s cheeks deepened in color. “…on General Go’thrakka’s tail. Very heavy.”“Oh no…” April laughed.“…during Examination Week….”“Oh, gosh… What did he do to you?”Y’gythgba made the glunk-ing sound again. “He assigned me to his squadron,” she stated with pride, “and made me wash and buff every one of the transport pods twice a day for two cycles!”April joined in her laughter, trailing off to become somber. “At least that’s something you can look back on and laugh about.”“You speak true. There are other mistakes I do not care to remember, even if I may learn from them. So let us not speak of those, and instead speak of your original mission in coming here!”“Sure you’re just trying to get out of mentioning any other amusing incidents to me?” the girl asked side-eyeing her.“Any opportunity to speak of Raphael I shall gladly take, more so if the path leads us from memories best left buried. What did you wish to know?”“Well… I wanted to know what you thought his reaction would be if I brought up… the incident with him. D’you think you think he would expl—do you it would set him off if I asked him about it? Or… would it just do more damage?”“Surely you have spent more time with him than I…”She shook her head. “Not in a way that I can get a good read on him, even with my powers. He’s more open with you. Besides, I could use another perspective.”Mona Lisa sighed fondly out of her beak. “My Raphael’s true emotions are not buried deeply beyond his tough exterior. Surely you have noticed this? April nodded. “Raphael’s highest priority is protecting his brothers, always. He may be defensive about what was done to Donatello, what may have happened to his brothers, had this Za’noran attempted to harm them. Anything that happened to himself will be secondary, or he may be burying it beneath his familial duty. If you can bypass those walls, you may reach what he truly feels.”“Well, worth a shot,” April shrugged. “Thanks, Mona.”“You are welcome. I hope this information will yield a solution for you.”April made a show of crossing her fingers. “Here’s hoping… You wanna go back out and join the game?”The Salamandrian rose. “Yes. Let us join the festivities of this night of girls! You and I shall destroy all the apples! Rakka rakka rakka!”April tried to hide a sympathetic wince. “That’s… not how you play the game.”“Hmmm, a pity. Those apples would not know what had hit them!”
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Chapter 6 – The Ones Like HimFor a while, they only stared at each other. Her father had called it ‘wait time’. April called it a battle of will with a severely stubborn turtle. “You’re the one that wanted to talk,” the red-masked turtle finally blurted. “Talk!”April puffed her cheeks and blew out a sigh. “Fine. Let me start with I’m sorry I almost let Za’noran almost blow you up.”Raphael rolled his eyes. “This again??” He rose, heading for the window, but April grabbed him by the wrist to tug him back to the couch.“I need to talk some things out about what happened, and I think you probably do too.”He yanked his wrist away. “What’s to talk about? You almost killed us, you didn’t, it’s in the past. Let’s move on.”“That’s just it!” Her voice rose as she followed the brawler toward the window. “Za’noran made me blow Donnie to dust, and she nearly did the same to you, and you just want to forget about the whole thing like it didn’t happen!”“Nothing did happen! You put Donnie back together! It’s FINE!” Raph’s own voice escalated toward a shout.“It’s NOT FINE!!” she screamed back, angry tears stinging the edges of her eyes as they threatened to well up further. “I’m not fine! Donnie’s not fine!” She tried to pull herself back together and calm down as she added, “Somehow, I don’t think you’re fine either.”Raphael paused, motionless for a moment, then turned, grunted, and stomped back to the sofa where he’d started from. A small victory. April joined him. “It… must have scared you,” she started, then cut him off as he started to snap back a defence. “I know, you weren’t… Of course not; your ego won’t let you say you were. But I know it couldn’t have been a barrel of monkeys having your limbs bent to their limit and not being able to move while Donnie was effectively dead and the same thing about to happen to you… because you couldn’t stop her, and I wouldn’t try hard enough until you and Mikey and Leo pushed me.”The turtle sighed, shifting his gaze to a far corner of the room. “Yeah…”“Y’gythgba said it was because I didn’t grow up as a warrior, that I didn’t have the experience of fighting for something to that extreme before. So, I’m sorry. I wasn’t ready for it.”“You talked to Mona Lisa? How is she? What’s she up to?” Raph’s demeanor brightened immediately at the mention of his girlfriend’s name. “She’s fine. Don’t change the subject!” She huffed, regathering her thoughts. “It had to be hard for you. I know it was, because it was hard for me.” She held silent for a moment as anger forced more tears out of her eyes, and her voice wavered as she yelled, “She made me blow up my boyfriend!”The turtle’s face darkened as he pulled April close to comfort her. “That dirty piece of galactic crap! If she’dda fought fair, I wouldda had her on the ropes!”“Beings like her can’t be bothered to fight fair. It’s like we were ants, and she was a bulldozer; I don’t think it was even possible for her to come down to our level and ‘fight fair.’”A moment’s silence passed between them before Raph said, “You know what the worst part is? Bein’ the toughest and the strongest means it’s my duty to protect my family… None ‘a that mattered when we tried to fight her. She just picked us up like toys and threw us aside. Fat lot ‘a good I could do protectin’ anybody!”“Don’t I know it… I was her favorite puppet. But you got me to fight, at least.”“Yeah. Like we had a lot of other options available. You were the only one that could fight the alien asshole. We had to get through to you, or we were toast. Crumbs, even.” He scowled, setting his jaw bullishly. “I don’t like that feeling…”“What feeling?” she coaxed.It took him a moment to pin the words down. “Being dependent. Being dependent on someone you’re not sure will actually make that move.” He eyed her meaningfully. She had to look away.“I know. I’m sorry I let you down, that I ever made you doubt that I’d fight to keep you guys.” She buried her face in her hands. “This is the worst I’ve ever screwed up…”The turtle clapped her on the shoulder. “But you did it, in the end. Far as I’m concerned, my faith in you’s restored.”She removed her hands to meet his eyes. “You really mean that?”“Wouldn’t ‘a said it if I didn’t mean it.”A wan smile crossed her face. “Thanks, Raph… I really appreciate it.” She sighed, glancing away. “If only could get that back with Donnie…”Raph’s face split in a huge grin. “Don’t worry about Donnie. He’ll get over it.”April blinked at him. “How can you be so sure?”The grin didn’t leave his face. If anything, it widened to Cheshire status. “By the way he’s been moping about all the time, sighing, being distracted. You gotta know he misses you.”Her brow furrowed. “That doesn’t exactly solve anything, though.”“It means he still wants to be around you. And from there, you two’ll work things out.” April swung the window open at Michelangelo’s tapping. “Hey, Mikey. Thanks for coming over.”“Absolutely no problemo. My fee?” he added coyly, holding a hand out, expectant for something to be placed in it.She chuckled and handed over a rolled and stapled paper sack. “One order of pizza gyoza, as promised.”“Ahh!” was his reply, smacking his lips as he tore the bag open, sticking his beak inside to catch the first whiff of the treasured treats. He popped a gyoza in his mouth. April was glad he was taking it easy on them; she knew Mikey could just as easily have dumped the entire contents into his mouth at once—she’d seen him do it—but was glad he didn’t this time, as it meant prolonging his attention.“So, you needed to talk to me about some stuff?”April was glad that he remembered, as hit or miss as Mikey’s memory could be. “Yeah. I need to talk to you guys about the night Za’noran made me explode Donnie.”Mikey’s smile faltered. “Oh, yeah. That was pretty intense.”“You’re telling me! I need to apologize to all of you face-to-face for what I let happen.”His sunny demeanor was back as he said, “You don’t need to apologize.”“I do, though,” she insisted, “to help deal with what happened, and start trying to make it right with Donnie, and the rest of you, too. I know it was scary for all of you.”“Yeah, but it must’ve been super bad for you, since you were the one being controlled and all.”“I’m glad you understand that… I don’t know if Raph really did, or Leo would.”“Sure they would! That was awful for everybody!” As he spoke, he pulled another gyoza from the bag. April followed its motion to his mouth, where the dumpling split open in the turtle’s teeth, revealing a pulpy mash of red that reminded her too much of what Donnie looked like as he was blasted apart.Instead of hearing Mikey’s further words about what Leo would have thought of the incident, she found herself visualizing it again, and the zap-zap-blutch sound that came with it. Za’noran laughing cruelly over her plans to do the same to anyone on Earth who would not bow to her will. Donnie’s increasingly desperate screams before he was torn apart, helpless in her psychic grip, and those of his brothers on the ground below as their sibling was rendered to atoms thrown across the New York sky. April yelped, devastated at going through it all again and again. Screams. Donnie exploding. The laughter. No, not Donnie! She couldn’t have destroyed him! Za’noran couldn’t have used her to destroy the person who meant the most to her! …But she did, and…“…april…?” a voice broke in, but so far away and muted. “April! Can you hear me? April!”She blinked and shook her head back and forth to clear it of the intense memory. “Wha…? Y-yeah… What was that about Leo’s meditating?”But Michelangelo focussed solely on her, arms wrapped comfortingly around her shoulders. “Are you all right? You totally zoned out there, and then started yelling!”Shaking, she forced herself to take a deep, albeit wavering, breath to release the stress. “I… I think I’m okay now, Mikey. It was just… just a really vivid memory of what happened…”“Good… you had me worried. Can I get you some hot chocolate? Or some tea? Or a microwave burrito? Or a pizza? Or… well, I ate all the gyoza already, but I could go get you some more, if you want!”April grinned at the orange-banded turtle’s comfort-food focus, so true to his essence. “Some chamomile tea sounds nice,” she admitted, more to give Mikey a way to unspool his own tension through doing something to help than actually wanting the brew. “I’m sorry. This wasn’t how I intended this talk to go down…”“That’s okay, really. It sounds like it’s still really messing with you, though. Lucky for you, I know just the person you should talk to about it!”“Really? Who?”The turtle in orange flung his arms wide, slopping the water in the mug he’d poured for her. “Donnie!”She sighed, leaning an elbow on her knee and resting her chin in her hand. “Yeah, there’s one little problem with that, though…”“What?” Mikey queried, ignorant to the complexities of Don and April’s relationship at present.“He doesn’t want to see me.”Mikey made a noise through his lips, brushing her off as he put the cup down and set the water on to boil. “Donnie always wants to see you.”“Not right now, he doesn’t. He said as much, last time we talked.”“Yeah, but that was, like, a couple of weeks ago! I’m sure he’s over it by now.”“I doubt it, Mikey. I’m not over it, and I’m not the one who was exploded to bits!”He gave her a wry look. “Well, how’re you gonna know if you don’t talk to him?” He slid his T-Phone from his belt, waving it demonstratively.“I—” she gasped, cutting herself off. “I don’t want to make things worse. He told me to stay away, and if he’s not ready…”The turtle clucked his tongue. “Donnie always gets mad a t me and tells me I’m banned from his lab until the end of forever. If I actually waited until he was ready, I’d never get to see what he’s up to!” he grinned, and April dropped her face into one hand, shaking her head. Mikey’s smile slackened, showing he was taking the matter seriously. “At least text him. Let him know the lines of communication are open on your end.” She hesitated, so Mikey turned his phone around in his palm and started tapping. “I’ll text him…”“No, wait!” she yelped, reaching out to him desperately to get him to stop before he sent it. He looked back with those innocent, questioning eyes. She sighed. “If this is a full-on breakup, I don’t want it to be over text.”“Oh, yeah, I guess that would be bad…” he admitted. “But c’mon! It’s Donnie! You’ve been his every waking thought since you met! He’s not gonna text-dump you!”She looked morosely at her own phone screen. The screams echoed vaguely in her head, and she put it back in her pocket.“Maybe… you could just talk to him first for me?” she asked, her eyes begging. “See if he’s all right with it?”“Nope!” he joyfully stated.Her eyes went wide with alarm. “What??”“Because I have to fix your tea first! After all,” he said, and started singing, “T is for turtle, that good enough for tea!” April slumped back in relief as Mikey continued with a silly dance, ending with an ascendant, “OHHH, Turtle, turtle, turtle start with tea!” She sat akimbo across from Leo on her apartment floor. “So you’re having flashbacks about Za’noran blowing Donnie up?” he summarized all she had told him. “Yeah. Like, any little thing could set it off… And I was hoping maybe meditation could help make it stop.”The leader of the ninja team gave a slight roll of the shoulder. “Worth a shot. It sounds like you’re getting caught up in the memory, and need to pull yourself out of it. Transcendental is particularly good for that. It’ll keep your focus on the here and now.”“Sounds good. So, do I need to start by thinking of…” She hesitated. She’d gone back to that moment in her mind way more often than she would have liked lately. Even thinking about thinking about it left a foul taste and a sense of dread hanging over her, so she was relieved when Leonardo shook his head. “No. We won’t trigger the event unless you want to confront it.”April thought silently at this, then said, “Maybe what I need is to confront her.”Leo’s brows knit. “Are you sure? That’s some pretty advanced-level astral projection… If you’re not ready for it—”“I know,” she snapped back. “At this point, though, I don’t think she can do any more damage.”Leo’s mouth pressed into a line as he returned her look dubiously. “If it goes badly, it could possibly cause you even more trauma.”“It’s okay. I’m ready to do this.” Her jaw set firmly, she closed her eyes.“All right. I’ll guide us in. April…” She felt a light touch to her knee and looked down to see his hand there, then up to meet his eyes. “I will be right there with you the whole time. If you’re ever afraid, if you want to go back, let me know, and I’ll lead us back out.”She gave a nod. “Thanks, Leo.”“Oh, and April?”“Yeah?”The turtle’s expression darkened slightly. “Save a piece of her for me. You’re not the only one she hurt by blowing up Donnie.”“Mm-hmm,” she answered, took a deep breath, and eased into a meditative trance as Leonardo spoke.“Deep breath in, and breathe out. In… and out, letting your muscles relax, letting your mind drift. In… Out… You find yourself in a great void, though it does not feel ominous. Feel yourself being relaxed and in control. You are confident, and nothing here will hurt you. I am there beside you, on this vast, empty plane. In the distance stands a figure: tall, white and winged… Za’noran.”She saw it all in her mind as Leo described it, particularly the lithe, shining white form of the Aeon spirit. Balling her fists, April strode forward, then broke into a run toward her adversary, who laughed at her.“Foolish insect!” she mocked, tossing her head with a haughty air. “I see you wish to be my puppet once more. Join with me once more, and we shall—”“Shut it!” the girl snarled as she stopped, throwing one arm out as it began encased itself in a golden-yellow glow that sparkled like the kintsugi resin. Za’noran’s lower jaw folded up over her mouth, any more arrogant words from her muted. She grabbed at her lip, desperately trying to pull it down, to no avail. “No. You’re going to listen to me now,” she declared. “You used me. Kept tempting me with more and more power through the crystal, making me feel like I needed it, making me feel like I was nothing without it!”“Call it what it was, April,” Leo encouraged beside her. “Say its name.”“Addiction,” she spat, without shifting her eyes from the Aeon’s black, almond ones. “You made me think that I couldn’t get by without that power, all the while using it as a conduit to take me over! And then!” She laughed cruelly. “Then, when Donnie’s machine gave you the boost you needed, you used my body to float around on your little power trip, leaving me disoriented and scared so that once you caught your breath, you could just seize control of me again.” Her eyes were hard as she made an upward gesture with her other arm, the gold dust surrounding one of the alien’s wings. “I’m the one in control now!”Za’noran’s wing twisted on itself, turning it upside down, the joints strained at unnatural angles. The corrupt spirit’s mouth finally tore open to emit a cry of agony.“Remember when you did this to my friend?” With another motion, the alien’s legs pulled as far behind her as the joints would allow, then outward, twisting them painfully at the knee. Za’noran screamed.“Oh, and let me see, there was one other little thing you did… what was it now?” she tapped her lip as if in thought as she flipped her hand over, yanking all of the Aeon’s limbs in new painful directions. “Oh, right,” her voice hardened from its conversational tone. “You exploded the person who means the most to me right in front of me! Shall we give you a taste of what that feels like?”“Uhh… April?” Leo interjected.“What?” she said harshly without looking at him.“…Never mind…” he decided, retreating a few steps, hands up in a conceding pose.“Worse than that, you broke his faith, his trust in me!”Despite her agony, Za’noran started laughing again, though not nearly as strong or confident-sounding as before. April scowled and contorted her wings again, but aside of another pained intake of breath, the laughter continued. “You… can’t do it,” she gasped out, a condescending smile coming to her lips. “Without the Soul-Star shard… you are weak.” She emitted another gasping cackle. “Without me… you don’t have the power!”April’s look, while already dark, took on all the seriousness of a black hole. She began whirling her hands in a circle, gathering the golden energy for a powerful attack, but a three-fingered touch on her shoulder stopped her.“April… you don’t have to do this. It’s over. She’s beaten.”The apparition giggled giddily. “You see… You cannot even finish it! You are too weak… to do what needs to be done… to kill!”“It’s called compassion,” April threw back at her. “You would know, if you ever had any.”“You will be forever powerless!” Her pained laughter continued until April spun, bringing her hands together and sending a bright flare of the yellow energy at her enemy. The alien’s face registered a moment of shock before she was consumed by the light, then began wailing in terror and agony as it consumed her and she was blasted to sub-atomic dust.April took a deep, cleansing breath and let it out. “Ya know, turns out, I had the power inside me all along,” she said at the trailing, glowing embers. Leo patted her shoulder. April turned and walked with him toward their entry point. She winced. “Sorry, Leo… Guess I didn’t save you a piece after all.”“It’s okay,” he smirked. “I think you turned her into enough pieces.”
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She had to communicate something to him, but a text or an email just didn’t feel sincere enough. It would have to be paper. She sat down at her desk, and rifled around in a drawer for the disused set of stationery her aunt had once given her as a birthday present.How should she start? Would ‘Dear Donnie,’ be too much, after they had broken up? He was dear to her. ‘To whom it may concern’? Way too formal… and it only really concerned him. In the end, he was the only important part, and she set the pen to the curlicue-margined paper.
Donnie,
I’m sorry for failing you.
I’m sorry that I didn’t listen.
I’m sorry that I let myself be taken over by something more powerful than myself.
I’m sorry for falling into the crystal’s addiction.
I’m sorry I was too afraid of her to fight.
I’m sorry that I didn’t try harder when I had the chance.
I’m sorry that I made you hurt, and scared.
I’m sorry I made you lose faith in me.
I’m sorry I broke the bond we had.
I’m sorry that I made you afraid.
I’m sorry that under pressure, I wasn’t strong enough.
I’m sorry that I may never be able to make it up to you.
I’m sorry.
~April
*** She paused at the turnstiles, watching carefully while trying to stay out of sight. Leo was usually meditating with Master Splinter this time of day, thus nowhere to be seen. Mikey was in the pit, busy with a video game. Raph was nearer to her, doing double bicep curls with his barbells. She thought she’d been fairly stealthy, but Raphael rolled his eyes. “All clear, April. Genius is locked up with his chemicals, as usual.”“Hey, April,” Mikey called from the benches, not taking his eyes from the screen, or hands from his controller as she entered and headed directly for the closed lab door.She stared at the door, wanting to knock or call out to the turtle working within, but the idea was ruined at the thought of startling or scaring him again. In the end, she slid the pink envelope under the door. It was her plan to walk away then, but she stood there numbly staring at the closed door for a few moments before finally turning and stepping leadenly back toward the entryway.That was it, then. It was done. But if this was supposed to be closure, why, then, did she still have a lump in her throat? Why were tears still jumping to her eyes?The door slid open behind her. She swiveled around to see Donnie stepping out with a surprised look on his face, though she sensed only a moment of fear from him this time. “April,” he called softly, extending a hand as if to stop her from leaving.Her tears worsened, though she tried to pull them back, and when she tried to excuse them away, all that came out was, “Ghh!” as her face crumbled. She wasn’t fully aware of any steps she took toward him, but felt like she was falling toward him as he took a couple himself to intercept and catch her.He stroked her hair and mumbled it’s-all-rights to her, then just let her cry herself out.“Donnie, I’m so sorry,” she managed at long last.“You said.” He gave the barest of grins as he bent to retrieve the letter from where he’d dropped it, waving it demonstratively. “I’m sorry too.”“What—No! You don’t have anything to apologize for!” She looked up at him, aghast.“No, I do,” he said, petting her hand. “You were right that I was being a coward.”“I don’t really think that of you, Donnie… I—““Let me finish… I was. And I was so caught up in my own fear that I couldn’t see that I wasn’t the only one hurt by this.” He tilted her chin up with a finger to make her look at him. I wasn’t the only one who was afraid. I wasn’t the only one it broke. I’m sorry for abandoning you to deal with it on your own. I apologize.”She clung to his arm, pulled him close so she could cry on it some more. “I forgive you,” she wept, “…if you can forgive me…?”“Of course I can.” He brightened, as if everything was back to normal. “Hey, do you wanna come hang out in the lab? I’ve been working on something super neat!”April dried the last of her tears with her arm, choking off a last sob, which turned into a laugh. “Sure.”