Soulbound (TMNT '16) ❪✓❫

Evil Officially Meets Good

One day until full transformation...

As the sun was rising over the trees, the wolf that woke up first noticed that a blue sky is cleared from the smoke. Usually, it takes quite a while for smoke from a forest to go away. The first thing Hawk does to start off the day is to nudge the bear, tiger, and cheetah awake from their slumber.

"Come on. Get up." She said touching Kri first. "Today is the last day."

The white tiger yawned loudly with a small growl, stretching her spine and legs for the day. She stands up tall beside Hawk, a tired bear, and a worn out cheetah.

Griz felt odd this morning as well as Shado. They didn't feel energetic or excited for the brand new day. Their bodies are still groggy and not ready for the morning. They didn't think it had something to do with the transformation getting closer.

"Kri and Raph haven't connected the cord yet." Donnie yawned. "We need them to connect before midnight tonight."

Mikey and Leo stretched their arms and back out to have it crack in a perfect roll. Raphael rubs the crust from his eyes and realizes he and the white tiger haven't had a connection yet. It was Kri's job to make sure it happens without even thinking about it.

Donatello looks at his watch. "10 am. We got fifteen hours."

The quads and the four mutant turtles take a few minutes to wake up and be ready for the day. As they do this they are visited by a shadowy figure in the camp. First, it started out as a regular looking shadow of a tree but emerged into a woman's figure.

Leo jumped back in surprise and alerts his brothers, pointing at the ground as it grew tall. Hawk and Griz defend the tiger, cheetah and turtle brothers.

The silhouette gained features of animal skins, dark-skinned surface, black hair, and red eyes with an evil smirk. Nizhoni let a venomous cobra weave around her body and show itself off on her shoulder. It hissed when it flared a scaly hood to the eight friends.

Nizhoni slowly walks up to them. "Good morning." She looked and sounded pretty, her looks could fool anyone but these animals and mutants. "I see you have one last cord to connect. What a bummer." She frowned playfully.

"What do you want?" Hawk growled.

She chuckled evilly. "A very simple death from the each of you." She replied with a grin. "But I don't want it to be an easy killing. Eight deaths where you all suffer until your last breath."

Raphael stepped forward to the dangerous spirit with her snake. "You'll have to go through me if you want our souls." He snorted.

Nizhoni narrowed her eyes at Raph and shrugged. "Alright, I'm flexible." She then shot her left arm forward for her cobra to catch speed and fly to the turtle's red masked face. Raph's eyes widen as the fangs flashed from its mouth and nearly got a good grip.

Kri roared when she saw the snake launch from Nizhoni. She lunged for the set of fangs and let her mighty tiger burst out. This stopped Nizhoni's reptile in place, stunned.

The young spirit signaled her snake to come back to her shoulder and both Nizhoni and the cobra glare at the quads and mutants. She felt she was weakening slowly since Kri stood up to the cobra to protect Raph.

Nizhoni exclaimed in disgust. "Tonight I'm going to make sure all eight of you are dead." She trailed her finger from the wolf to Mikey at the end of the cluster.

What the friends didn't know about Nizhoni is that she is scared. Scared of losing to these beings that have a great bond. She will do anything to get power and take control over what she wants and whenever she wants.

Leo laughed lightly at Nizhoni's sentence. "Try us tonight, snake." His arms crossed over his plastron and he and his brothers grinned at the evil spirit. The quads lower their heads, ready to fight if they needed to right there.

Nizhoni growled softly. "I promise, freaks! I will get what I want." Her figure and snake faded away when the last six words were heard.

Shado steps forward to come in front of the group and face them to ask, "She promised to kill us, guys. What if she has got something bigger behind the curtain that we don't know of?"

"Don't worry, Shado." Said Mikey. "Running River said if we work together we can beat her."

"That isn't making me feel better, Mike." She chirps sadly.

Hawk sighed. "Fighting that snake is our ticket out of this. This is exactly what Nizhoni wants. She wants you to be scared and we can't that show itself or it'll be easy for her to finish us." The wolf walks up to Shado and nudges her lightly. "Chin up."

Shado nods once.

Raphael looks around the camp to see if there was anything to do to pass time. "What are we supposed to do before midnight?"

"We can kill time if we take a walk on the trails." Leo shrugged off the idea.

Kri believes it is a good choice. She chuffed. "Yeah, I like Leo's idea. We can find rocks, play hide and go seek, climb trees, there's a lot to do around here."

Donnie grinned. "I'm up for a stroll." He points to the biggest tree he sees outside the campsite and continued on. All the pine needles were burnt off and showed off a thick trunk. "The first one to that tree over there has to clean the whole camp when this is all over."

Shado sped away from the camp. Mikey laughed as he and Donnie bolted with Griz, Hawk, and Kri. Leo and Raph playfully shove each other so one of them can be in front of the other.

The eight friends sprinted together in a shirt race toward the thick tree standing tall above bushes. Heat rises off working bodies, grunting to boost speed, the damp soil kicking up behind them, and turning a sharp corner of the trail. Shado chirps out a victory, Donnie ran ahead of Mikey and made second place to the tree. The others were far behind.

Leo and Raph are the last two left in the race. It's gonna be close. The blue leader is picking up the pace and Raph is just inches away from his brother's footsteps.

Raphael cackled. "Come on, bro! Run!" The second eldest tried pushing his brother off the trail. The race was getting intense enough to where Raph didn't want to play fair.

Leonardo ignored him and saw what was ahead of them both. An ankle-deep mud puddle is ready to catch Raph in his tracks. "Look down!" Said Leo.

Raph got off focus and did what he was told. Soft, rocky, mud messed up his footing. The bulky turtle exclaimed in surprise, falling to the surface of the mud bath, and finally face planting.

Now Leo is the one to laugh. The quads rolled on the ground, laughing in their heads. The other two mutant turtles snorted in their hands and began to hold their stomachs as they had trouble breathing. 

"Karma, bro!" Leo skids to the tree. He pointed at Raph still.laying in the mud. "Karma is a--"

Raph growls and splashes the mud puddle, getting more muck in his eyes and mouth. The entire front of his body was covered up in the earth, he was bummed out that his brother had beaten him in the race.