The Disposable, Hated, Forgotten

Donnie

It was not my fault! That is what Donnie wanted to scream at the top of his lungs. Ok, in retrospect, hitting that bird lady in the head with his Bo staff on what clearly was some kind of campground was not his brightest idea, but can you blame him? He was just chased through a forest by giant ants for goodness sake! In addition, his sense of direction got so skewed that he couldn't take three straight steps. Something was seriously wrong  with this forest, but somehow April managed to navigate it and get them both away from the ants by herself. She was awesome.

Unfortunately, it took all five smoke bombs they had on them to get the ants off their trail. Donnie considered going around the ants and just head back to the Party Wagon, but Donnie wasn't sure what else could be here. April seemed to know where she was leading them and it seemed she was right. The farther they went, the less threatening the forest felt and the more his instincts started to relax. Still, coming upon a strange camp after that and having a bird/human monster lunge at them was panic inducing. He should have thought this through.

Now, he was crouching behind a bush now watching the crowd around the woman grow. Every fiber of his being was telling him to run from the people, but he knew they would just see him. They seemed like normal humans, all teens, but they looked at the girl with concern for her well being. Truly strange, thought Donnie, and...nice. Then for a second he thought he was hallucinating because he watched as a white horse with the torso of a middle aged man was making his way through the crowd. They all looked at him with respect and all seemed very accustomed to him. How would that feel? To have so many simply accept you? To have people respect you?

He started clearing away the people gathered around except a young man with blonde hair who was carefully examining the woman's head. At first he considered coming out and explaining all of this, but it was obvious that the horse man was not happy at all and was going to severely punish the ones responsible. That was his choice. Dangerous forest or lots of people. Dangerous forest...or lots of people. Forest.

He waited until the majority of the crowd gave into their commands to return to their cabins because they would hopefully be too sulky to notice him. He held out his hand to April and mouthed the words one, two, three. Then they both dashed as fast as they could away from the camp. About twenty feet into their sprint Donnie could hear footfalls from behind and cursed in Japanese. He listened carefully and listened to the beat at which they were running. It only sounded like one person, but whoever it was had obviously had some experience in tracking and running by the way they navigated the forest.

April was slowing down from exhaustion, he couldn't blame her, but his head was spinning like a top and he needed her to help get them out of there. He grabbed her wrist and dragged her along. Then, of course, the ants came back. Four of them stood in their path, frothing mandibles, obsidian colored exoskeleton, if they weren't about to kill him Donnie would be extremely interested in studying these creatures.

No time to fantasize about a Noble Peace Prize right now (though he totally already deserved one for creating retromutagen, FYI), he was standing in front of giant ants, he was still dizzy and April was too tired to put up another fight, plus some punk was chasing them. Caught between a rock and a hard place with no smoke bombs to get them out of there.

Did he mention how awesome Leo is? 'Cause Leo is the best, best, best, best big brother ever. Somehow he managed to stagger all the way here with Mikey tagging along and he remembered the smoke bombs, extra bonus points. Running up from behind, Leo and Mikey jumped over the ants. Leo landed right next to Donnie, dragging him to the side, while Mikey was throwing smoke bombs yelling "Boyakasha!" Leo half lead, half dragged Donnie and April up a nearby tree and they were soon joined by Mikey.

"Are you guys alright?!" Leo yelled in between pants.

"We're ok," April replied.

"Are you sure?" Leo asked.

"Leo, relax we're fine," Donnie said. April winced slightly.

"Except for the part where we are stuck in a giant tree surrounded by giant ants and there is a person following us because Donnie freaked and hit a bird-woman in the head at a nearby summer camp."

Again, not my fault, thought Donnie as Leo and Mikey raised their eyebrows at him. Apparently, the guy who was chasing them was a lot closer than Donnie anticipated. He jumped out from behind the brush and saw the ants surrounding the tree and looked up at the tree. They all pressed themselves further into the shadows. For some reason the ants let the young man pass, really they barely seemed to notice him.

He pulled a pen from his pocket and Donnie looked closely at it. From here it seemed like an ordinary pen, what was he going to do with it? Bore them to death with terrible poetry? Donnie's sense of humor dissipated when the boy removed the cap and the pen transformed into a glowing Long Sword. The sword must have sent out some bad vibes because the ants immediately started to leave. April tensed and took a sharp inhale, her pupils shrank, Donnie knew that somehow she recognized the the boy.

"I know you're up there," the boy said to the canopy of the tree. "Come out."

Leo made hand motions to the tree next to them, telling them that they needed to jump across to the next tree. That was risky.

What if he sees? Donnie signaled back.

Ok, just go. Leo commanded him.

Donnie tried to get April's attention, but she was completely fixated on the boy and his sword. She looked puzzled and amazed at what she saw, and scared. Could this have something to do with her freaky dream? Maybe, but they were there a moment too long, the boy reached down and picked up a rock and chucked it into the tree.

Mikey dodged the rock easily, but had to jump out of the tree. He landed gracefully on the opposite side of the boy and he whirled around to face Mikey. The boy's eyes widened at the sight of him, but he didn't look scared, just deadly determined. Mikey whipped out his nunchucks and started to spin them wildly, the boy raised his sword. That was a mistake.

No way was Leonardo going to tolerate this guy threatening his baby brother, especially with Raph injured recently. No one was going to raise a sword on Mikey. Leo jumped on top of the black haired boy and pinned him to the ground. Before Leo could grab his arms, the boy jabbed his sword behind him, forcing Leo off his back. Leo dove on him again, and quickly landed a punch on his jaw. The boy yelped and started groping the ground. He grabbed a rock and brought it down on Leo's shoulder. Leo grunted and stumbled off of the boy, but quickly recovered. Leo and Mikey both got into defensive positions side by side.

"Stay here," he whispered to April.

"I've got a feeling Donnie," April said distantly, "Don't let Leo beat him up too bad"

He gave April a glance before jumping down to join his brothers. The boy looked at each of them and Donnie was pretty sure he heard him murmur a name. Carter.