Chapter 10:

(3rd:)

Leo nearly jumped out of his shell when another transportation image of orange partials appeared in front of them which caused both him and Karai to draw their weapons at nearly the same time as well as take nearly the same stance.

They proceeded to look at each other strangely for half a second as if deciding if they were okay with this sudden synchronicity before turning back to the possible threat only to find that it was Mikey, Raph and Zira.

"Leo?" Mikey asked clearly a little confused to see him.

"What happened?" Raph demanded of Zira without so much as a 'hello' for his leader. "Ya said ya could take us ta Donnie."

"I DID!" She screamed back in his face before looking down at the tattoo on her wrist which was no longer glowing. "He must be around here somewhere." She added before pushing past him to search the area.

"He must be around here somewhere." Raph repeated insultingly as Leo walked up to give him a look. "Hey bro how was yur date?" He added with a smirk and his brother promptly glared at him before suddenly remembered something and spun around to find that Karai was gone.

"Oh, f***!" He swore under his breath causing his siblings to blink at him in shock of the sudden unexpected language from Leo of all people, and he was about to use their attention to his advantage and order a search for her when Mikey suddenly called for a 'scatter' and they all bolted in opposite directions as Slash came crashing down like a turtle-shaped meteor from hell to land right where they had just been standing.

It didn't take but two seconds for Raph to dart toward the mutant and snatched the purple mask the creature had in his grip. "Donnie!" He said quietly before pouncing on the larger turtle. "Where is he? Where is my brother?" He demanded dangerously.

"There." Mikey suddenly called out and they turned to find him pointing up at the building that Slash had just fallen from only to discover that the snake-version of Karai was swiftly making her way up the side.

"Go!" Leo ordered and they all quickly descended on the wall as well, for the three turtles had suddenly realized that they could sense their missing brother at the top.

…

It all happened so fast that Donnie really wasn't sure his brain had caught up yet. One second he was being attacked by Slash as they fell to their death and the next he was standing on top of the building to watch as the behemoth hit the ground without him.

He looked around when movement caught his attention again and found Zero watching him with extreme interest and quickly forced himself not to move as the time-ninja suddenly reached out to touch his face as if he suddenly recognized him, which caused Donnie to realize he had lost his mask in the skirmish.

However he remained in a bit of a daze until he suddenly came to the understanding that he was once again under attack.

"Get away from him!" A snake mutant suddenly demanded as she swung her tail at his face in an attempt to defend her companion.

Though Donnie backed away quickly, this didn't stop her from trying to bite his head off again and again forcing him to block with his staff as she continued her assault with all the violence and anger of a mother bear.

"I wasn't going to hurt him." Donnie informed her sternly, finally realizing just who she was before suddenly coming up short in his attempt to get away and ended up backing up straight into a wall giving her the perfect opportunity to take him out.

But before her fangs could make contact Zero suddenly reappeared in-between them; thus forcing her to quickly adjust her strike so she didn't hit him, leaving her to stare in shock at what her companion had just done.

"Tokka?" She asked, sliding into her human-form as her confusion hit home and he quietly held out his hands in a whoa-motion trying to communicate that she didn't need to attack anymore. "What are you –" She tried to ask but before she could finish her sentence Donnie's own backup arrived on the scene in the form of a clearly pissed off Raphael.

"Whoa – hang on a minute." Donnie quickly informed him as his brother pulled out his weapons and nearly attacked until Donnie got in his way. "I'm okay." The younger of the two added sternly as he threw his arms around the larger turtle's shell in an attempt to hold him back.

"Donnie – what's going on?" Leo whispered as he, Mikey and Zira arrived on the roof as well.

"Well – I –" Said turtle started as he turned to look at the other two ninja, only to find that Karai was still staring at Zero like he had grown a second head or something. "– I have no idea." He finally admitted.

"Why –" Karai continued suddenly and everyone looked at them again. "Why would you help him?" She added in a voice that suggested the action had seriously hurt her, but Zero quickly tried to make amends as he reached up to tap against the side of his helmet.

Donnie realized quickly that it wasn't Morse code but there was still a clear pattern that suggested words were being made. "He is not the same!" Karai suddenly demanded, but Zero quickly refuted that as he rushed over to touch Donnie's face again trying to find a way for her to understand.

"Tokka – they –" She attempted again but was interrupted as Zero made to remove his glove before carefully placing his hand over Donnie's; showing that they were nearly the same size, shape and even color, which left Donnie to come to the sudden understanding that he could now sense the other turtle as well.

"Zero –" Karai tried in a more serious tone as she walked closer to them, causing him to reach out for her hand as well and forced her to place it on top of Donnie's. "Zero – he isn't –" She started to say again, but was once again interrupted when both her and Donnie suddenly froze as if they were seeing something no one else was.

"Don?" Raph called after a minute of the strange connection which ended when his brother suddenly fell to his knees. But even though Raph immediately rushed forward to catch him his sibling seemed unable to respond as he just stared blankly at the ground in shock.

"What did you do?" Raph demanded loudly as he rounded on the other two, but, before they had time to answer, he was attacking again.

"No!" Donnie attempted to speak up as he watched Karai push Zero behind her and back them both away from the angry turtle.

"Donnie." Leo suddenly said at his side, clearly not seeing the problem with the fight going on in front of them. As far as he was concerned Raph was doing his job. "What's wrong, are you okay?" He ordered sternly only to receive a very lost look from his brother as he attempted to make his leader understand, but once again he couldn't get his voice to work.

However, as he turned back to the battle in front of them he suddenly found his strength again and bolted toward his red-clad brother leaving everyone behind him in a confused state of shock.

Again Raph stopped dead in his tracks when Donnie suddenly appeared in front of him where he reached out to grab his shoulders, clearly wanting him to stop but also needed the extra support just to stay on his feet.

"Don?" He asked in confusion as he dropped his weapons in order to hold his brother up.

"Stop, Raph." Donnie begged in a tiny voice. "Please, stop."

Raphael was obviously very confused by all this, given that all he could do was stare at him of a moment. But eventually his features softened and he finally nodded in agreement. "Okay." He stated quietly as Leo, Mikey and Zira rushed up to see what they could do.

However, everything went to hell all over again when a familiar form of orange specks appeared on the roof and Slash stormed his way into the fray. "Karai!" He demanded loudly as he waltzed toward the female mutant who signed in annoyance as she hid Zero behind her again. "You damn traitor."

"Speak for yourself." She countered angrily. "I told you we needed them alive."

"I –" He tried to refute but she swiftly continued.

"You would have killed him had Zero not intervened." She proclaimed calmly.

"Well than what are you waiting for?" He demanded as he turned to glare at the four brothers. "Let's capture them already."

This immediately caused Mikey and Leo to pull out their weapons again and stood in front of Donnie in an attempt to give him a little more time to recover from his panic attack.

"The mission has changed." Karai informed him sternly and Slash immediately rounded on her in anger.

"NOTHING has changed." He roared back.

"Something has just come to my attention." She proclaimed, clearly indicating the phenomenon that had just transpired between her, Zero and Donnie as she walked up to glare him down. "I believe we may have been misled – I want to find the truth before we continue."

This suddenly seemed to cause Slash to relax in such a strange way that the turtles were honestly shocked by the unexpected reaction. "The truth of what?" He asked simply causing her to look at the brothers before she spoke up again.

"I don't believe they are our enemies." She finally admitted, noticing how Leo quickly stood a little straighter as if hoping that it wasn't a trick.

But what she didn't catch was how Mikey quietly laid his hand on Leo's back to tap a finger against the bone of his brother's shell, which silently informed his leader of what he had discovered.

Like Donnie; Mikey had been trained to recognize the language of the body as well as the face and even though Karai was admittedly very good at disguising her features, he could still tell that she was lying.

However, what was weird was that he also noticed that Slash had no idea what she was talking about.

"Is that so?" The larger turtle suddenly asked as Karai continued with her ruse in an attempt to get the brothers to drop their guard, clearly not seeing what was coming next.

"Karai!" Leo called in warning but it was already too late, for Slash had lifted his weapon in a fraction of a second and hit her so hard that they actually heard her bones shatter as she roiled along the rooftop to nearly fall off the side before Zero appeared out of thin air to catch her.

Immediately the sent of blood filled the air and Zero began to panic as he watched it pool around her body where she struggled to breathe.

"Slash – what are you –" She tried to ask, but he interrupted as he calmly beat the ball of his weapon into his hand and walked toward them causally.

"Sorry sister, master's orders." Slash proclaimed with a pleased little grin. "Though I'd be lying if I said I haven't been waiting for this." He added cruelly as he raised his weapon again, but that was as close as Leo's team was willing to let him get.

They looked out for their own, even if that meant protecting an enemy.

Leo and Raph were on the larger turtle in seconds, using an expert combination of Raph's strength with Leo's speed and longer ranged weapon to force him back as Donnie rounded the fight to get to the injured mutant.

"It's okay, it's okay." He informed Karai quietly as he applied pressure to the wound, leaving Mikey to search his bag for the bio-foam Donnie had created a few years ago which was able to immediately clog Karai's wound and stop most of the bleeding.

However, a sudden roar from Slash had them both looking back to find their brothers were starting to lose ground on the monster. "Go, I got this." Donnie told his younger sibling and Mikey nodded before rushing into the fight as well.

"Zero?" Donnie spoke up again getting the other ninja's attention, but he seemed too shocked to respond to him "Tokka!" He tried again finally causing the other turtle to face him. "We need to get her someplace safe." He added sternly hoping that the communication-challenged turtle could understand him.

Though Donnie was well aware that more time was passing in the next moment than he was privy to, it had only taken a blink of his eye for both Zero and Karai to completely disappear. However, the weirdness wasn't over just yet as he looked up and suddenly found himself struck with a serious case of déjà vu.

Realizing immediately that he had seen this particular image of the skyline before he quickly turned around to find what he could only describe as a rip in the fabric of time, where he discovered his younger-self from no less than 5 minutes earlier staring back at him in shock, causing him to instantly remember that he had a message to deliver.

"Protect him!" He yelled as he got to his feet and ran up to the rift as it started to fade. "Protect Zero." He added just before the hole faded and he found himself momentarily hoping that the grandfather paradox was true and that no matter what he did or said to his past-self the timeline would continue as it always has and always will.

"NO!" Slash suddenly bellowed as the window disappeared and Donnie once again found himself face to face with the beast as he stormed toward him in anger of his pray getting away yet again.

But Leo wasn't having any of it

"Guys." Their leader stated dangerously as he realized that Karai and Zero were finally safe and that his entire team was at his side.

"Take him down."

…

(Donnie's POV)

"What the hell?" August suddenly proclaimed when we all materialized in the middle of his living room with a little help from our prisoner's transportation device.

"Oh man." Mikey complained as he held his stomach. "That's not fun." He added before quickly re-securing his hold on the mass of spikes and anger management issues that he happened to be sitting on.

"August!" Leo got the man's attention quickly as I realized that our friend had probably just arrived back at his apartment after the all but forgotten issue involving Irma and the two boys.

'How on earth had we managed to get so sidetracked?'

"Do you have a place where we can – store our new friend here?" Leo added causing Slash to thrash around again in an attempt to break free of his binds, but we'd short-sheeted Raph enough times to know how to use someone's strength against them.

It didn't matter how hard he tried, he wasn't getting out.

August was obviously a little shocked to discover what we had accomplished in such a short amount of time but got over it quickly as he answered my brother's question.

"Yeah, I know just the place."

…

'Just the place' turned out to be an abandoned insane asylum from back in the day when humans had needed a place to keep the first mutants, which had usually been unstable and dangerous.

I would have been lying had I not admitted that it was amusingly satisfying watching Slash fuss around inside a padded room designed with reinforced walls that could actually contain his ridicules strength.

"Don't open the door." Leo ordered as he joined us again while simultaneously returning the little black phone to his pocket. "Bishop will be here to pick him up soon. Hopefully we can find a way to help him." He added in August's direction.

"And if we can't?" The man requested calmly.

"We'll cross that bridge if we come to it." Leo answered solemnly. Admittedly we were all a little uncomfortable treating a fellow turtle like a monster, and as such we would love to hear that Slash was just being controlled or influenced by Shredder. But it was hard to shake the fact that we certainly had our doubts.

August nodded in agreement before wisely changing the subject. "What about April and Casey?" He stated clearly struggling to contain his worry. "Did you get any useful information from Irma?" He added looking toward me and Zira as he asked this.

"I did, but –" I started to answer as I looked to Zira who was obviously still in no mood to talk about what we had experienced. "I had to lock it away." I added quietly.

"What does that mean?" He asked me kindly, causing Leo to step up and answer in my place.

"He means it's not safe." My brother commented sternly. "The defenses Shedder put in place nearly killed them. Splinter's probably the only one who can find a way around them unharmed."

"So – that means –" August started again before being interrupted.

"We can't use it." Raph added as he folded his arms in a huff. "It was a waste a time."

"Not exactly." Leo countered calmly causing everyone to look at him again. "I think I know of someone who can help us."

Raph immediately opened his mouth to demand that he continue with that vague comment when I interrupted.

"Karai?" I added simply causing my red-clad brother to round on me like I'd just sworn my allegiance to the Devil himself.

"Ya gotta be kiddin' me!" He complained loudly. "That woman's been trying ta kill us for the last two days and now ya want ta join forces?"

"Man you just don't like anybody,do ya?" Zira countered smartly and he quickly turned to glare at her before looking back to Leo.

"You can't be serious?" He demanded sternly and Leo sighed before answering.

"She's worked for Shredder and she was just betrayed by him." He started truthfully. "She had it all wrong and she knows it. Now we just have to show her the truth."

"Okay." Raph grunted as he raised his hands to stop the conversion. "Is there a station comin' up where I can board this train a thought? WHEN did we start helping the enemy?"

"She's hurt." I added simply and he promptly looked back at me as if to refute that but when our eyes met he decided against it and sighed. As much as he may have wished to deny it at the moment we were both doctors and as such our first priority was to insure that everyone lived, we could hate them for the rest of our lives later.

"Alright." He agreed reluctantly as he turned back to Leo again. "So where do we find her?"

…

(3rd:)

A few minutes later the group was split into its usual teams of two, with Zira joining Donnie and Raph once more as they searched the city for any sign of Karai or Zero.

In between trying to track someone in a concrete jungle and running into guards that were pretty adamant to know just how not one but three of Shredder's henchmen had breached the borders of New Manhattan undetected, Zira managed to find the time to bring up a concern.

"Hey." She whispered toward Raph as they managed to avoid another squad of border guards that were getting more and more insistent about knowing the whereabouts of their enemy.

"What?" He asked calmly as she reached out to stop him from walking away and he turned to face her in a halfhearted attempt to actually listen.

"I'm not going to pretend that I know Donnie better than you." She started seriously. "But even I can see something's changed."

"Yeah." He agreed as he looked toward his brother who was searching an area on another rooftop, though he was clearly not putting a lot of brain power into the action. "I've never seen him like this." He added solemnly as he took in the almost sad sag in his brother's shoulders, like the other turtle had given up hope of ever being happy again. "I don't know what ta do." Raph finally admitted as he looked back to her.

Zira seemed to understand immediately that this was his way of asking for help, so in the interest of calming the waters between them (if just a little,) she offered what she could. "Just – talk to him." She stated simply. "You'll figure it out."

He gave her a little scoff in return as he looked back at his brother before taking a deep breath and walked over to interrupt the absentminded search.

"Don?" Raph muttered in an attempt to get his attention which only caused his brother to turn away as if to hide something, but the red-clad turtle wasn't having any of that. "Hey!" He promptly ordered and reached out to grab his shoulder in order to turn him back around but still Donnie refused to look at him as he pointed his attention at the ground this time.

"Talk ta me!" Raph added in concern as he strengthened the grip, partly in concern that if he didn't hold on Donnie would just fade away into whatever thoughts plagued him.

"'Bout what?" His brother asked in a quiet voice which immediately told Raphael that something serious was up. Donnie wasn't the type to use improper English unless he was severely distracted.

"What did he do?" Raph demanded as he reached out to grab Donnie's other shoulder forcing his brother to face him completely. "What did you see?" He added sternly.

It didn't take a genius to put the pieces together and realize that he'd been dwindling further and further in this sudden depression since he'd nearly collapsed after Zero had shown him something on the roof.

"Come on, Donnie." Raph insisted gently when his brother shook his head, obviously having a hard time voicing what was on his mind.

"It can't be." He finally said in a whisper so quiet that Raph barely caught the words. "It's impossible." He added as he continued to shake his head and suddenly Raph was extremely afraid.

He had never heard Donnie use that word.

"What?" Raph requested attempting to hold in the fear that was now bubbling up, not for himself but his brother.

"Zero." Donnie finally admitted as he looked up to meet Raph's eyes. "I know who he is." He added showing his sibling the desperate gaze of someone who was begging his older brother to help him make sense of this.

"He's my brother, Raph. The one I lost."

The End

Well okay then; looks like we'll finish the mission in Part 8… maybe…

I still can't figure out how I managed to get them so distracted.

But I guess it wouldn't be the Ninja Turtles if they didn't become a little sidetracked.

LoL

Well time to watch for Part 8

"The Peaks We Climb"