New story time! I've had a lot of trouble feeling motivated so I decided to post a story I planned to write, like, two years ago!

This will be an alternate version of the Dark Raph episode from the 2012 series...with a Dark Leo! Whoo!

Just a disclaimer, I planned this story to be super dark, graphic, and intense. I really want to test some limits here and see where that takes this piece. Don't know how long it will be, because you all know I can't write anything short.

Prologue

My heart's an artifice, a decoy soul

Who knew the emptiness could be so cold?

I've lost the parts of me that make me whole

I am the darkness, I'm a monster

-Monster, Starset

{Raph}

My heart is beating out of my chest. Everything is pulsing, throbbing, aching. My mind is nothing more than fragments and shards, projecting rapidly behind my burning eyes.

It happened so fast. They came out of nowhere, so many of them. Smoke and blinding powder—blades and shuriken—sent us into a frenzy.

Leo's voice echoes in my head on an endless loop.

Stay together!

We tried.

But Mikey got hit, and he went down, and I broke formation going after him. Then chaos erupted, and suddenly, we were all separated, fighting just to keep on our feet, struggling to breathe behind the mass of powder and gas filling the warehouse. By then, we all knew this was an ambush. That we were lured there, and we probably wouldn't escape.

Raph? Donnie?

I can still hear him, screaming in my brain. The clanging of steel and ragged breath. I found Mikey and fought to keep the Foot away from him while he cradled his bleeding head. I couldn't see Donnie, I couldn't see Leo. I couldn't even see the bastards attacking me. Forced to the ground, I ended up using myself as a meat shield to protect Mikey. The blows came from all sides; stabbing pain, dull aches, jabs, shocks—it was relentless. The panic was so real, so incredibly cold and unforgiving. I thought we were going to die, suffocated and beaten to death on the concrete—

Until all of the sudden, there was silence.

The smoke began to lift. I hovered over Mikey, knees and elbows trembling at the task of bearing my own weight. Every muscle screamed and stung. Sweat, blood and grime dripped from me. My jaw clenched, teeth grit.

Keep your eyes open, Mikey—stay with me—

His head was smeared with crimson.

Stay with me, damn it—

I called for Leo. I screamed. The desperation echoed through the warehouse and came back to me in waves, the emptiness mocking me.

But then I heard Donnie groan. I blinked hard, rubbing the blood and tears from my face so I could see more than two feet in front of me.

Donnie? Donnie, Mikey's hurt—we need help—

He stumbled over to us, knees trembling. His bo staff was shattered, his body littered in welts and cuts. He coughed and grabbed my shoulder for support.

L-Leo—

His voice was raw and hoarse. Chest heaving, my eyes searched for our brother—but even as the smoke waned, I felt a hollowness in my gut. Somehow, I knew.

Donnie, I gasped, Donnie, where's Leo? What happened?

His words broke me, down to my core, and beyond.

They took him—

No—

They took him, Raph—

No, they didn't—they couldn't—

He's gone—

My fists clench the wheel of the Shellrazor as I rip myself from the nightmare. I'm swerving from lane to lane, screeching through intersections and trying to block out the persistent beeping of Donnie's T-phone.

"I'm still not getting a signal—I've tried everything!" The fear constricts his voice. It fills the air. Everything is thick, heavy, ready to crumble. It's taking everything I have not to lose it completely.

"Keep trying!" I snap. "We have to find him!"

My eyes scour the streets, desperate to see a glimpse of a van—something, anything. I'm trying to drown out the thoughts, the ones that whimper and cower in the corners of my skull, telling me it's too late, he's long gone. We don't know where he went or why. He could be dead—he's probably dead—

The beeping continues. The NO SIGNAL FOUND message blinks behind my eyes. No signal. No Leo. Nothing.

Dead.

The Shellrazor quivers and rumbles as I slam my foot on the gas. We tear down the street, knocking over trash cans, setting off car alarms—all the things we shouldn't be doing in the middle of the night. But I don't care. The combination of rage and fear rivals what it felt like the first time we lost him. The first time the explosion shook our world and stole so much from us. The memories and emptiness only fuel the terror we're feeling now. The urgency that burns through our veins; the blinding and hot and nightmarish reality that has its hand around our throats.

We can't lose him again. We couldn't survive another instant of that. We have to find him, before it's too late.

And part of me wonders if it already is.

Anybody interested? Yes, no? Nobody cares because I never post anything so you all have moved on? For those of you left, let me know!