Out of My Shell

Chapter 11: Fear

Chapter 11: Fear

'Hnnng! Get off of me!' Michelangelo flailed through the thick water, struggling to tear himself from his enemy's grasp. But kick and thrash as he might, the tentacles only locked tighter around his throat, pulling him further down into the depths.
His chest grew tight. He hadn't gotten a chance to breathe before he'd gone under, and now, as the tentacles wrapped around his face, panic swelled.
Mikey bit and scratched, desperately stabbing into the strange metal and flesh with one of his hidden blades.
The monster's scream echoed hollow, the terrible water rushing into his face. And now his lungs began burn.
If he could fight any harder, he did; bright blue eyes wide and terror frenzied. He reached up desperately towards the cold, shimmering lights that marked his home.
Home.
It was starting to fade.
'Bros... I can't...'
No. Just a little longer. He needed to hold on, just a little bit longer. But he couldn't. The unkind water rushed and burned into his body, the last of his air racing away. Now there was nothing left to even scream.
His head throbbed and grew heavy. The colors slowly began to blur.
He thought of his brothers. Of Sensei...
He almost thought he could see him.
He was so scared.
'S-Sensei...'
It was the last thing he thought before everything went dark.
--
A terrible weight crashed into his chest.
"Mikey.... Mikey....!"
It sounded like Leo.... Only very far away. His chest hurt.
It felt like someone was punching him over and over and over again. Then suddenly the water was pushed hard from his body. Mikey coughed and sputtered, hurling it all from his system.
"Mikey!"
Mikey sat up and forced himself to look around, wildly trying to clear his vision.
"Where's Sensei?!" he demanded
Leo shook his head towards the water. "He..."
Mikey looked back down into that terrible current that had nearly done him in, took a deep breath and uneasily dived back in.
Sensei had saved him. He knew it down to his shell. He saw the tentacles reach out and grab him. He was there somewhere. And he was going to save him.
Nobody was going split up their family. Not again.
Mikey found him quickly. His father seemed to be suspended in the middle of the water, a weak trail of bubbles trickling past his whiskers. And one of those coiling limbs was meandering its way up his leg.
Michelangelo pulled the knife from his belt and swam to the rescue. One stab and the tentacle retracted. He quickly grabbed his father, swimming double time against the current towards the surface.
The second his face broke from the water, he was ready.
"LEO!" he called. "CATCH!" Mikey took aim and threw his kusarigama chain up his brother to catch. Leonardo readily grabbed hold and started to pull.
He pulled and pulled and pulled. The pain flared like fire in his arm but he didn't stop, not sparing an ounce of his strength until he had hauled the both of them up over the pipe.
And now, gasping for breath, Leonardo panicked once more.
His father wasn't breathing.
--
--
Beneath the dark dank surface, the little bladed bugs swirled down into the abyss, down-drain into lock...
But Mutadroid had not.
Sharp claws scraped and glistened in the stale light. And pulling its misshapen body from the water, it began climbing its way up the piped walls with a renewed eerie hisssssssssssssssssss.
--
--
Thrust after thrust thrown into his father's chest and still Leonardo wasn't getting a response, but he kept trying. He didn't care how long it took.
He would save him.
"Sensei... Sensei come on. Please..."
"Dude..." Mikey swallowed. This was too much!
Leo just focused on his task. He was about to try mouth to mouth resuscitation when suddenly Master Splinter bolted up, sputtering to expel the fowl water from his lungs.
"SENSEI!"
Relief rocked Leo and Mikey and the moment the coughing stopped, they did not hesitate throwing their arms around their father.
Master Splinter spared a weary smile to them. "I am alright, my sons," he promised.
"We thought you were a goner," Mikey choked.
He smiled and pat his head. "It will take much more than that to drown this rat," he assured. He rose to his feet but instantly winced, falling back down to his knees.
"Sensei..."
"...I am alright," he said calmly, "though I have sustained a few more injuries than I previously discerned."
Mikey and Leo helped him to his feet, letting him use them to lean on.
"Come on," Leo urged. "Let's get you... home..."
His voice trailed off as he looked to their home. The last of the water drained away and with one more glance to one another, the three went down to face the wreckage.
--
--
Donnie gasped from the floor and tried to blink the stale water from his eyes. The concrete was cold and clammy. And it took nearly all his strength to push himself from the floor. He looked around for Raph.
He wasn't too far away. The water had only thrown him a few yards off.
"Ugh," Raph sat up and groaned, uncomfortably trying to knock the water from his ears. "Ya think we got 'em all?"
"...Yeah... hopefully," Donnie replied, rising up from the puddle. "I just hope the others are okay."
"I'm sure they—AUGH!" Hot pain surged through his foot and in the next instant Raph had crumpled back down to the floor.
"What happened?!"
It felt like it was on fire! Raph quickly held it above the puddle, now watching the red swirl into wet ribbons off his skin. Donnie appeared by his side to examine the wound.
It did look pretty bad. The whole bottom of his foot seemed to be split open.
"Did you step on one of them?"
Raph sucked past his teeth. "Would it surprise ya if I said yes?" he growled.
"...Come on." Donnie handed him his staff and let Raph thread his arm around his shoulders to hoist him up.
"There. Can you walk?"
"Yeah."
With that, the two began to make their way through the long stone tunnels, Raphael hopping alongside with the help of his crutch. But the movements were poorly choreographed and their steps faltered. When they did, Donnie would readjust his weight and without a word, they would continue, slushing silently down the puddle-filled corridors.
The sound soon created a sort of rhythm; loud and taut.
Donnie yawned sleepily.
Raphael noted his eyes; the way they were locked down to the floor. He looked ragged, weighed down from who knows how many sleepless nights. Raph could feel the weakness in his step, the way his feet dragged uneasily through the water.
That previously welcomed silence grew heavy and wrong. The weight of previous events slowly trickled their way back into Raph's head.
The things that had been said. The things that hadn't.
.....What was he even doing?
Raph was the older brother. He was supposed to be looking out for him, protecting him, not... whatever he was doing.
This had all gone too far. And all because he had been an idiot, freaking him out... taking the joke too far.... Pushing the envelope with his confused bullshit feelings.
Feelings he didn't even understand himself.
None of that was an excuse for what Donnie was going through. He wasn't sleeping, wasn't eating. And now here he was, carrying him. Literately, carrying him. Because he couldn't pay attention to a few stupid bugs.
It was humiliating. And it was all Raph could think about.
So the silence dragged on, each slosh holding its own urgency. Raphael had to say something before Donnie did. If he didn't, he feared Donnie would bring it up first. And he didn't want to hear what he had to say.
This whole thing needed to be buried. Now. Six feet under, so it never ever came up again.
There was no attraction here. There never was. They were brothers.
And this ended now.
A few more sloshes and Raph gathered his courage.
"...So about what I said before: I didn't mean it," he said. "It was all just a bad, stupid joke. You don't need to lose any sleep over it."
A tired, uncomfortable flutter invaded Donnie's chest and he tore his eyes away. ".....It...... didn't feel like a joke, Raph."
"Well, it was," he affirmed. "....I'm an idiot okay? Just pretend it never happened."
Donnie swallowed hard, the heat alive in his face.
For someone who had been spending the last countless hours awake and alone with his thoughts, Donnie truly hadn't done much thinking at all. And he knew that wasn't right. While part of him welcomed Raph's memory-deleting proposal, he deserved something more than that.
Raph was obviously going through some very complicated feelings. Things that could be explained by modern science. There was no reason why they couldn't talk things through and settle this maturely.
Though, this was his brother. "R-Raph... I..."
Raph was about to rear back and shut him up, when a strange sound stopped them both in their tracks.
A shudder. And then an unmistakable clank rattled its way across the ceiling.
"What was that?" Donnie turned around, flashing his light up into the rafters. Raphael adjusted the goggles back over his head again, searching around for anything out of place.
But there was nothing. Only hollow sounds and the dripping of old beams.
"You heard it too, right?"
As if to answer, they both heard it again. And this time, Donnie thought he saw a shadow.
Raph pulled a sai from his belt, crouched and ready. The moments teased by and then a sinister purrrr made Raph's scales stand on end.
...Right behind him.
In the next moment, five lethal limbs seized Raph's body and without so much as a muffled scream, he was gone... pulled away into the dark.
"RAPH!"
Donnie barely caught it all from the corner of his eye as Raph had been snatched away. His now abandoned staff fell loud and uselessly to the floor. And Donnie stood alone.
Danger coursed through him and he reached for it only to be suddenly blindsided, thrown across the floor by something heavy.
Donnie quickly gained his guard, and when he did, he found Raphael was lying beside him in a crumpled, useless heap. His eyes grew large, and when he looked up, he found that same eerie pair of eyes from before, staring him down.
Donnie swallowed. His staff was lying not too far away, but it was clear by its eyes.
The creature already knew his plan. And it was waiting.
Fear and adrenaline sang through his nerves, and Donatello saw no other option. He dove and the tentacles rushed across the floor to meet him. His fingertips had barely grazed the sanctity of his weapon before he was pulled off the floor and hurled headlong into the wall so hard he thought his shell had cracked.
With the wind punched out of him, Donnie struggled to regain focus and when he did, he found a blade hurling straight towards his face. With a terrible sssing it stuck fast into the wall and with it, the tails of his mask. He was rushed and suddenly Donnie found himself face to face with the monster, now so close he could smell the mutagen on its breath.
Only then did Donnie truly know fear.
"HEY!" The angry challenge bellowed from the floor. Mutadroid paused to look over at its challenger. Raphael had managed to pulled himself up, sai in hand and a murderous look in his eye.
"Back off before I shove this sai somewhere you'd prefer I didn't!" he warned.
Donnie held his breath. Now did not seem like the best time to challenge it.
Mutadroid was hardly amused. A single lash in retort and Raph was thrown right back into the grit of the pavement.
But he wasn't done. Raph clenched his fists and wiped the blood from his mouth, only angrier than before. "Alright! You asked for i—"
Another slash. This time Mutadroid grabbed Raphael by the face and slammed him into the floor as though he were a ragdoll.
This time he didn't get back up. And those strange marbled eyes now narrowed in on Donatello, locked and loaded.
Donnie struggled to free his mask from the wall, but it was no use. Mutadroid raised a limb to his face, the strange mechanical parts rearranging until they formed an almost humanoid hand. The long steely fingers stretched long and pulled into fist.
Clenched inside: was Donnie's staff.
That strange shuddering growl from before rolled dangerously past its teeth and the cogs in its throat began to turn. Donatello then watched in hapless horror as Mutadroid snapped his staff like a twig and fitted the broken pieces into his mouth. The cogs cranked and whined, his staff cracking and splitting into a thousand pieces.
Suddenly Mutadroid screamed. A painful, horrible shriek and Raph held his sai imbedded into the creature's flesh. His hand shook at the handle, pain searing through his body.
He barely had enough strength to drag himself across the floor. And it took the last of it to pull his sai free.
Mutadroid hissed angrily. The new cybernetic hand wrapped around Donatello's throat, tore him from the wall and smashed him down against the floor.
Then it was gone. Slithered into the shadows. Raphael forced himself up on to his knees, sai ready and waiting.
They weren't alone. Not yet.
A shadow blurred by. Another eerie purr.
It was toying with them, reveling in their fear. Even the sounds of the sewers pressed pause for that inevitable blow. Donnie poised the throwing star tight in his hand. Instinct pricked and Donnie took the shot. He threw his weapon and it found its mark right between the mutant's eyes. Sparks flew and there he was, face to face again with that oozing maw.
His step faltered.
He couldn't fight it. Neither of them could. And there was no place to run.
Raphael stepped between his brother and the monster, his sai raised to protect him. But Mutadroid's eyes didn't see Raphael. Not for a moment.
All they saw: was Donnie.
That gaze kept on staring, grinding into Donnie's nerves. "...W-What?!" he finally snapped. "What do you want from me?!"
Its eyes narrowed. Raphael pushed Donnie back further, ready to take it on.
And then it made the most disgusting sound either of them had ever heard. The only thing they could even compare it to was the sound Mikey made before he hocked a loogie.
The creature hacked and heaved until finally a rancid mess of half digested mutagen spewed out from his mouth and into its hand. With a disdained hiss, it held it out and dropped it with a vainglorious plop.
Right at Donnie's feet.
Both of them cringed, swallowing that lurch in their stomachs. And as Donnie stared at the mess he realized, that the disgusting ball of vomit before him was his staff.
Raph ground his teeth and lunged forward with his sai... and suddenly Mutadroid was gone.
"Where did he go?!" Donnie looked around wildly. "Where did he go?!"
There was a long, strange silence and then a small grinding of steel echoed from a sliver of light, peeking down through the tunnel.
New York. The bustling streets above flashed them a glimpse of its glory. The last of the Mutadroid's body slithered out past the manhole cover.
And Raph and Donnie were truly alone.