In a world of monsters and mutants, Donatello didn't hesitate. He grabbed his little brother's hand, turning Michelangelo and running with him toward the far door. Moonlight streamed in through the glass, throwing the reversed shadow of the garden sign on the floor.

"The garden doors," Donatello said, "we can break out that way, jump the fence—"

The thing that came into view completely blocked the light, giving just the silhouette of a long centipede twelve feet high, its mandibles clacking in the air. Its antennae waved back and forth, curling slightly at the ends, and its long body undulated as it stepped further out into the aisle, shaking off chunks of concrete and dust. Wherever it had come in from, it clearly had the strength to smash through bricks.

"Holy..." Michelangelo whispered.

Its head turned. They all would have sworn that it didn't have eyes and yet it stared directly at them, hissing as long strings of poison dripped from its mouth. The effect was hypnotizing in its grotesquerie, too horrible to turn from.

Two more centipedes came up behind it, only a few feet high, following the larger one's focus.

"Giant centipede," Donatello gasped. "Twenty one segmentations, chemoreceptors functioning to find prey, poor vision, at least two offspring—"

The centipedes rushed at them, closing the distance so fast that Donatello had barely swung his staff up before the large one was rearing back to bite. It rose into the air, halfway to the ceiling as its legs splayed out, ready to grab the nearest turtle.

The stench of caustic chemicals made Donatello flinch back before he recognized the splash of something on the floor, followed almost instantly by the strike of a match. Flames shot up and spread along the spill, blocking the aisle, and Leonardo hurled the empty container at the centipede to bounce uselessly off its carapace.

They were both on this side of the flames, but while Donatello and Michelangelo edged back, never taking their eyes off the monsters, Leonardo was instead climbing up to the next shelf of chemicals.

"Donny," Leonardo said, "take Mikey and run!"

"What?" Donatello shook his head. "I can't leave you behind! What am I supposed to do, go home and tell Raph 'hey, guess what, you won't have to fight for that last slice of pizza anymore'?"

"Unless you can run faster than those things," Leonardo said, grabbing another, larger, bottle of cleaner to refresh the flames, "one of us has to make a diversion."

"That's just a nice of way of you'll be its lunch!" Donatello said.

"So you make a diversion after you're farther away," Leonardo said, this time throwing a flaming bottle, driving the centipedes back several feet. "And then I can get outta here!"

"That is very suspicious logic," Donatello muttered, but he ran alongside Michelangelo down the aisle, heading for the cashier registers instead.

As they sprinted, they heard the familiar scratching and caught glimpses of the smaller centipedes moving beside them on the other side of the shelves. Donatello leaped and swung his staff in a broad circle, slamming heavy boxes off the shelves and onto the floor. There was a crack and a high pitched hiss.

"Take that, ya spawn!" he yelled, knocking off a kitchen sink that shattered satisfyingly over crunched carapaces.

Then the whole shelving started to rattle, to tip to one side, teetering at the edge—

Donatello looked up and his jaw dropped. Leonardo had scrambled up to the shelves, tied his grappling line to one end, and leaped on the next shelf over, straining to pull one of them sideways—why throw boxes when he could throw hundreds of pounds of merchandise?

"Stop, you'll—!"

The shelves toppled, and Leonardo disappeared as the heavy plumbing materials fell over the giant centipede. Caught between the long slats of steel, the monster hissed and thrashed, sending the next set of shelves over, then the next. Tools and plumbing and porcelain collapsed and crushed anything underneath.

Amidst the crackling of the flames, the store fell silent. A high pitched tinkling came as a few last pieces of porcelain pipes shattered on the floor, the rustle of cement bags breaking open and spilling powder. One of the shelves twisted and settled more firmly in place. Their brother was nowhere to be seen.

"Oh my god," Michelangelo breathed. "Do you think he got trapped in there?"

"He gets out of chores all the time," Donatello said, forcing a light tone. "You know he's fine. Come on, once we're at the door, we can do the distracting and get him out, too."

And call Raph for backup, he thought. And Splinter. And maybe find Leo's broken body under all that.

As they leaped over the gates between the cash registers, a bright burst of noise erupted behind them. Two more loud bursts came as they turned and landed, sliding on the smooth floor toward the exit.

The fire had spread, rising up the cardboard boxes and igniting the chemical containers in now constant explosions, and thick oily smoke gathered at the ceiling. From the clumsy piles of tools and sinks and wooden shelving, Leonardo pushed up out of the debris, shoving aside a bag of concrete, then turned and dragged himself free. Visibly dragging one leg, he moved away from the flames and pulled his sword as the pile began to tremble.

"Why's everything shaking?" Michelangelo asked nervously.

"I don't think that thing's dead yet," Donatello muttered. "Maybe we'll be lucky and it burns up—"

In the blazing orange flames, the giant centipede burst out of the broken slag—dark blood drenched one side and half of its legs were either bent backwards, broken or sheared off completely—but its mandibles were intact and its antennae pointed straight at their crippled brother.

"Behind you!" Michelangelo yelled.

Leonardo looked over his shoulder and found the creature coming much faster than he could.

Lit only by firelight, Leonardo started to laugh, helplessly. Hopelessly.

"Do me a favor and tell Raph I killed it with my bare hands!"

"Tell him yourself!" Michelangelo reached into the shopping basket he had only gripped tighter in his fear, flinging one of paint cans he'd grabbed.

The can flew like a baseball through the air, hitting the centipede's face, then dropped down to the flames where it exploded in a cloud of flaming yellow paint. As the centipede reeled backward, Michelangelo flung paint can after paint can, strafing to the side for a better angle. Finding a row of paint stripper cans by the register, he pulled the tops off and hurled them with unerring aim at the centipede's mouth.

To their combined surprise, the monster lunged at the last can and caught it in its mandibles—and the punctured chemical ignited along its face and the can exploded, taking off the top of its head in a spray of black blood. Leonardo ducked, flinching at the explosion of heat and light and sound that came from only a few feet away. The pile of rubble shifted as the body landed in a heap, followed by the soft sound of its innards spilling out of its shell.

Once he was sure the pile wasn't going to shift underneath him, Leonardo started to stand...and then quickly went back to his knees, one hand on the boxes under him. The room swam in a circle, making him nauseous, and he realized that being in the middle of a growing pyre of chemicals was dangerous in more ways than simply burning. The smoke, now thick enough to rise to the ceiling, stung his eyes and throat, and he dragged himself closer to the edge, finally sliding to the floor.

The crackling behind him was not the fire.

Knives cut into his leg.

He froze, choking, gasping for air that didn't come. Pain blacked out the lights and for a long moment he was only aware of the feel of sharp points cutting into red muscle and blood welling up over his skin. Twisting without thought, he wrenched free and stumbled, that leg buckling beneath him.

Michelangelo was yelling something, his voice growing closer, and Leonardo felt his heart beat unevenly—his little brother was coming to attack whatever had bitten him. He couldn't even remember what they'd been fighting in the face of that pain.

Leonardo pulled his sword, slashing at the shadowy blur crawling toward him, and a moment later there was the sound of a manriki-gusari hitting its head, forcing it backward only a step. His little brother's arm came around him, helping him back to his feet.

He heard it lunge more than he saw it, the hiss coming right at their faces—he swung automatically and the portal opened up in front of it. Startled that he'd actually managed it, he dropped the sword, and the portal shut with a splash of ichor across the floor.

Across the room, the head of the centipede rolled across the floor, coming to rest up against Donatello's foot.

"Yikes!" Donatello kicked it aside, his leather shell crawling at how it seemed to keep looking at him. "Gross gross gross..."

"Donny!"

The panic in Michelangelo's voice brought him running to meet him halfway. Leonardo leaned heavily on his little brother's side, his arm slung over Michelangelo's shoulders. He stared unfocusedly at nothing, and his breathing grew increasingly labored. By the time Donatello reached them, Leonardo tipped back, unconscious.

"I think it bit him," Michelangelo said, laying his brother on the floor. "I can't tell for all the blood."

"Yes, that means it bit him," Donatello said with more patience than he felt. "Go get a ton of bottled water and bring it back—"

"Uh, Don..."

About to snap, Donatello looked up.

Half the store was on fire, and the shadows of small centipedes flashed across the far wall before disappearing. Either the other small one had escaped, or there were more.

"Stay with me," he murmured, gathering Leonardo up in his arms. "Mikey, get the water on the way out."

First aid was hastily done at the far edge of the parking lot, using only a spotlight from Donatello's goggles and the orange glow from the flames beginning to crest through the roof. Washing off the blood revealed deep punctures in Leonardo's calf and the angry red lines of venom in his veins. Michelangelo asked what they should do, and not knowing anything else, Donatello put his hands on either side of the wound and tried to press inward, squeezing out more blood than black venom. He used his mask to wrap the wound, hiding the torn muscle from sight, tightening the makeshift bandage enough that Leonardo groaned.

Sirens shrieked down the lane as red and blue lights flashed across the pavement. Police and firefighters were speeding toward the store. By the time their trucks pulled around their corner, their headlights swept across an empty parking lot.