the lazarus job - tmnt (2)

sixteen

CHAPTER 16

THE TRAITOR

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THEY WEREN'T supposed to be here. 

That was Nadia's first reaction when she realized just where she stood. She could tell at first by the smell; the way the stench of smoke lingered in the air like a put out fire. It clung to her skin, her clothes, and clogged her nose as if the smoke was still fresh. 

Then she could tell by the color of the ground. 

It was black; as if the planet itself had decayed in the inside. What was once grass, remained now as a shriveled black strands, stuck to the dried dirt below it. 

Nadia slowly pushed herself up, her eyes growing wide. Her knees began to shake, her hands tremble, and her head was shaking side to side in denial. 

"No," she breathed. 

But it was true. There was no use to deny it. The decay, the smell, the stench of death was something she immediately knew and it frightened her. 

As much as she hated it, she knew where she was. 

"Nadia?" 

The voice. It swam through her ears like water and dripped right back out. She couldn't focus, not when her emotions coursed through her like poisoned water. Fear, anxiety, nervousness; they all coursed through her body and festered in her mind like a Cuckoo bird in another bird's nest. 

She began to panic. 

A hand touched her shoulder and on instinct, she yanked her arm away and ran her hands through her hair as a shaky breath left her lips. She paced, her legs hardly carrying her violently trembling body. 

"Nadia?"

"Yo, is Dia good?" 

"Nadia where are we?" 

"Nadia-" 

"We're in Kuldor." 

Those words were poison on her lips. No one would dare step foot onto this wretched planet and without wishing it, she did. 

Leo looked around; his gaze assessing the truly corrupted planet. It was no wonder that everyone who spoke of Kuldor claimed it to be 'dead'. There was no life, at all. Anything that was once alive was now nothing but a crisp black corpse. 

Trees were hollow and white. Grass and bushes were nothing but charred remains that littered on the ground like black crystals. Even the sky bore a sickly grey color. 

Nadia sucked in a breath of air, frantically searching for the clump of portal spheres. When she found them, she threw them on the floor, hoping for a reaction. 

Nothing. 

"No!" She yelled angrily and threw them once more. Once again, nothing happened. 

"What is going on?" Raph questioned loudly with growing agitation. He wasn't getting angry about the situation, he was simply getting angry that Nadia wasn't explaining anything. 

"We shouldn't be here," she rambled as she lift the portal spheres up to her wide brown eyes. "W-We should be at-at-" 

"Nadia," Florence calmly called. Nadia turned, her gaze softening when she saw just how pale Florence was. The poor girl was whiter than a sheet of paper with a trembling body that wouldn't stand still. 

Donatello looked to Florence and swallowed thickly before walking up to her and wrapping his arms around her. She shivered in his chest, but remained silent the rest of the time as Nadia continued to look around her.