Chapter 9 Part 1: Short Circuit → Donnie and The Villain
Donnie’s room
A week went by. Bruises faded, stitches dissolved, but none of them could escape the silence that bled through every corner of the lair. Even with April coming there to check on her friends, it was no use.
Yuichi only spoke to Splinter and April, leaving to go somewhere else into the sewer the entire week, except when he needed to sleep or eat. Leo was worried and was also having a hard time. The guilt about what he said had been eating him alive, not being able to get full meals inside of his stomach each day. Raph noticed and tried to get Leo to be like his usual self, a strong, charismatic leader, but it wasn’t helpful. As a result, Raph secretly became more hateful towards the rabbit, thinking Yuichi had been influencing his leader’s behaviour and ability to think. Mikey mostly was supporting Raph in his mental state, trying to calm him down. He was also the one who visited Donnie the most, checking on his mystic energy source due to his talent.
Then, something happened…
Donnie started moving his body. His hands twitched against the blanket lying over him. Mikey hovered nearby, nervously watching the rise and fall of his chest.
After waking up, drenched in sweat and panic, he immediately cried out from a huge headache.
“AHH MY HEAD, WHERE’S THE IBUPROFEN? I NEED IT NOW, PLEASE!” Donnie screamed in a very agitated manner. Mikey immediately rushed over to the medicine cabinet.
The others ran to Donnie’s room. Relieved that he was awake, they tried to hug him, but Donnie did not feel like hugging at the moment.
He started to flinch violently, causing everyone to back away. His hand twitched, as though the air itself had become too loud. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to regulate, but it was like his thoughts were on fast-forward and his body was buffering behind.
With a worried look, Mikey glanced at Leo and Raph, being scared for their brother.
‘Too bright, turn off one of the lights… please…’ Donnie said as April and Mikey both ran to the nearest light source.
As Donnie became slightly more at ease, he still held his head like he was in a lot of pain. Then, he started to have tears in his eyes but he didn’t know how to react to it. The team felt helpless to see their brother so vulnerable.
Yuichi, who actually was in the lair at the time this was happening, stepped forward and tried to say something. “Donnie I-” but he got interrupted by a screaming Donnie.
“BECAUSE WE TRIED TO SAVE YOUR MAMMAL BUTT, LOOK WHAT HAPPENED. NEW YORK IS IN PIECES, I AM A MESS. YOU ARE THE LAST PERSON I WANT TO SEE AT THE MOMENT.”
Leo tried to say something but Yuichi just closed his eyes. Quiet as a mouse, Yuichi nodded in understanding and left the room.
As Splinter started to say something, Donnie spoke up, interrupting the rat in the process.
“I… I just need to calm down, until the ibu kicks in. So… leave…” Donnie whispered.
Everyone was standing in shock, not knowing what to do or say.
“Donnie, please, you can talk to…” But as April tried to comfort Donnie, he quickly interrupted her.
“LEAVE,” Donnie yelled, barely holding it together.
As everyone left the room, Donnie held his head with his arms, tears still coming from his eyes. Donnie did not want to push everyone away, but everything just felt too much. Silence was the only thing he could handle.
As Donnie was alone in his room and the medication started to kick in, he started hearing things.
“Keep it together, you are the team genius after all.” As Donnie muttered those words, he heard crying.
But it was not his own crying, it was someone else’s.
It was him, the one who had caused Donnie to be hurt so badly. At first, Donnie became overwhelmed with anger. But then, after a moment, he realized what had happened. He remembered he poured all of his mystic power into the villain.
No way… Could he?
“It can’t be…” Donnie said.
Still very fatigued and weak, Donnie tried to sit up in his bed. He tried to meditate like Splinter taught the boys.
Suddenly everything went black, as Donnie found himself in a dark landscape. Looking at his arms, he finds they are fully purple, like the color of his mystic energy.
At first, Donnie was in shock, but he couldn’t manage to create his weapon. Then, Donnie heard crying again, and started to slowly walk toward the sound.
He didn’t understand why he walked toward the sound. After all, he was not the person to handle emotions and stimuli well, especially when he felt so vulnerable. But here, he had less of a problem with them for some reason.
A crying boy appeared. “Mommy, it hurts again, I can’t do anything.”
The boy looked to be around 10 to 12 years old.
An older, tired looking woman, who Donnie assumed was his mother, talked to the young boy. She started speaking in a very sweet, but worried tone.
“Morris, sweety, it will be alright, we will go to the doctor on Monday, he will change your medication and then you will feel better for a short while.“ As she walked away, her smile slowly faded.
Everything faded to black again.
“Time flows differently here, on the one hand it’s faster, and on the other hand it’s slower, almost indescribable,” Donnie said to himself
Suddenly, Donnie sat in front of a man and Morris. Donnie assumed the man was his father. Morris looked a lot older now, the father almost looking like he was an elder. Right next to Donnie was a man in a white coat, who had a neutral but slightly sad expression on his face.
As Morris and his father sat at the doctors desk, nobody spoke. Donnie could feel the doctor trying to have a neutral demeanor towards his patiënt.
Donnie found it odd that he could feel emotions so clearly here. It’s like he just understood another language out of the blue. It’s not that he was emotionless, it was just different, just like he was. Donnie listened to what was being said.
“I am sorry, I am afraid your chronic nerve pain will never fully go away, even with these painkillers and these other medications, you will still endure symptoms. I can prescribe you something to make sure your mental state won’t get affected too much, but that is about it.”
Morris started screaming, with the father not intervening, as if he would have done the same thing if he were in Morris’s shoes. “HOW CAN YOU DO THIS, THERE ARE SO MANY OPTIONS LEFT. DO YOU THINK I AM DUMB, I STUDY A MEDICAL DEGREE WITH A CHRONIC HANDICAP!”
In the silence, the doctor wanted Morris to let his rage out. “I DO EVERYTHING YOU PEOPLE ASK, AND YOU DON’T DO YOUR JOB.” Full of anger and despair, Morris slammed his fist on the desk.
“Those MYSTIC medications you are talking about are addicting, and dangerous. I cannot give them to you. You will need more and more, until the dose becomes dangerously high.”
As the doctor said those words, Morris, looked as empty as ever. Starting to quiet down, tears started to swell from his eyes. “To keep having hope like this is so hard… I can only work a few hours. I can’t hang out with friends, I can’t do anything…”
The doctor tried to say something, but Morris interrupted him before he could speak. Morris sounded incredibly defeated, like he had given up.
“There is nothing wrong with me, all I have is this pain”.
Donnie was left speechless. Even though he could handle emotions more clearly here, this was too much for him. There was so much emotion in this moment. He just saw someone’s world fall apart and he wanted to get out. He had his own stuff to deal with.
As he ran out of the hospital in this strange world, he was teleported back into the lair. Donnie quickly took another ibuprofen for his head.
Donnie thought for a moment, and then realised it. “No… it’s him…”. He then slowly tried to get out of his room to the others.
“I shouldn’t have been able to see all that. Not unless… some part of my power is still inside him.”
Back in the lair
As Donnie got out of the room, everyone looked in shock. They did not expect him to come out so quickly. Everyone started crying, except Yuichi, since he thought Donnie wouldn’t accept him.
“Just stop… there is something you need to know.” Everyone looked at Donnie puzzled, worried something bad might be told.
“I… I am getting visions and hearing things that I think are of the villain… who we fought some time ago.”
“What!?” Raph said bewildered. Mikey, who is an expert in the mindful aspect of mystic power, immediately realized that part of Donnie’s mystic energy must still be inside the enemy.
“Your energy is still inside him, is that it?” Mikey asked with a serious tone. Donnie thought for a moment and then nodded at Mikey. Everyone looked in shock, realizing what Donnie could do now.
“Donnie… please. Don’t overexert yourself, you have done enough…” Splinter said with a worried tone. Leo was looking very seriously at Donnie, wanting to know more, but unsure if it was wise to press further.
“It’s fine… but we have to do something with this, maybe we can find a way to defeat him by looking into his core.”
Full of emotion, April spoke up. “It’s NOT fine! Look at you, you are pale, weak, sweating. You are not the Donnie we know. You can barely summon your staff.”
Nobody said anything. Then April said something that managed to hurt Donnie a little bit.
“You haven’t been for 2 years now.”
“We need to do this, April…” Donnie said weakly. “He destroyed a part of New York.”
Leo was deep in his thoughts, but then looked up at Donnie. With a painful expression, he asked the question secretly everyone wanted to know the answer to.
“What do you know now?”
“LEO,” April yelled. “Did you not listen to what I JUST said?”
Raph and Mikey looked worried at Donnie, but Donnie, even though he seemed really sick, managed to ease everyone.
“Guys, I am THE Donatello Hamato, just… give me a break every so often.” Donnie said, trying to smile weakly at the team. Even though he used to be a jerk, he didn’t have any more energy to try and be mad at everyone.
Everyone nodded, April crossing her arms in disapproval and throwing an angry look toward Leo. She then sighed. “Alright Donnie, just… don’t go beyond your limit, okay.”
Donnie nodded and started to talk about what had happened. “His name is Morris, he is a boy with chronic pain and he couldn’t get treated for it and suffered a lot. He did not seem to have any mystic powers.”
“Okay Donnie, that does not sound like the same person,” Leo said, really annoyed, almost getting angry. He couldn’t though, not now that his brother was hurt so badly.
A mad Yuichi looked at Donnie, seemingly trying to humanize the person who hunted his family. He wanted to yell at Donnie, but he didn’t say a word. The rabbit figured it was not what the situation needed right now.
“I am going to sit and try to connect with him again. Please use your mystic energy on me. I hypothesize… Maybe… You can see it too?”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Mikey asked, looking unsure as if he needed to protest against Donnie’s decision.
“For the last and final time… YES. Now put your hands onto me.”
Everyone put their hands onto Donnie… except Yuichi. He was mad at Donnie for humanizing the person called Morris. He did believe him though when he said he could connect with him.
Donnie then looked into Yuichi’s direction. “Look… Yuichi… I…”
Yuichi interrupted him. “It’s fine, I will do it, but only to defeat him. I don’t care if he is a miserable person underneath, he needs to be put down.”
After Yuichi said this, everyone nodded at each other in understanding.
Everyone put their hands on Donnie and then, after 5 minutes, they entered a black void and saw him… An image of Morris.
Morris’s mind
Morris’s parents sat together in the dim light of their home, tired, quiet, worn down by years of invisible battles. They weren’t angry. They weren’t even crying at first. It just looked like there was nothing there.
They tried to comfort Morris, but to no avail. Morris’s body was twitching violently as he was crying, screaming in agony from the pain all over his body.
Morris truly loved them, but he could only feel his nerve pain. It consumed every emotion he had. Every thought Morris had was about how he was feeling, thinking of a potential solution for it.
His parents walked out of his room, smiling weakly at their son. Then, after sitting down together, his father started to speak.
“We have tried everything we could,” the father murmured, his voice cracking under a brittle calm. “But nothing… nothing will take the pain away.”
He looked over at his son with a kind of helpless love that made Yuichi clench his fists. How could they love a monster like that? He killed so many innocent people.
“If he ever chose to end it… I wouldn’t blame him. Not because he’s a burden. But because this… this is hell for the boy.”
The mother swallowed hard, her hand tightening around her husband’s. Her lips trembled before she whispered.
“Me too.”
Donnie’s chest tightened. He could feel the weight pressing from the despair like static.
Mikey and April could not handle it. Mikey thought about the young man he had just fought, and that this could not be him. Tears started swelling up in both of them. Raph closed his eyes, and put his hand around Mikey’s shoulder, while Splinter was the one who comforted April. Leo was just shocked. His mouth was open as he didn’t understand how someone like him would end up chasing Yuichi’s lineage for a 100 years.
Yuichi said nothing, being indifferent towards the situation at this point. He was thinking Morris deserved it. In reality though, he just didn’t want to face the fact that the man who hunted his family was once a real person instead of a monster.
Then, the team heard screaming again. Morris was older now, probably around 22 years old. He looked exactly like he did in the current time. He was screaming in pain and praying that it would end. This continued, with the whole team watching Morris.
As the team watched this, they were all in shock. Leo, Mikey, and Raph thought back to the time that Morris screamed when Donnie was destroying him from within. Donnie, who on his own had an easier time in this world, was now trying to shut down all the emotion coming from everyone, so he could keep going on longer.
The voice… It truly was him.
Yuichi was especially shocked. He didn’t want to see it. Why would someone, who’s family was hunted down for a century, see the perpetrator as a victim?
Yuichi gritted his teeth. Despite the situation, seeing his enemy in so much pain, he did feel fear. Then one night, after long hours of screaming and prayer, something answered… It was the remains of the entity that the Usagi family defeated centuries ago.
“I heard your prayers Morris… I can take it away… but I want something in return.”
“ANYTHING, ANYTHING YOU WANT,” Morris cried out, wailing.
“I will grant you power and the knowledge to use it… The ones who are taking care of you, I want them. I need to know you are willing to do anything for this power.”
“JUST MAKE IT STOP… PLEASE.” Morris yelled, not realizing what he was about to do.
Everyone looked in horror at what was about to happen, except one… Yuichi. He looked with intense anger at the situation, eyes burning with hate, as he saw the spider-like ghost touch Morris’s soul. Everyone else trembled in fear, starting to realise what they were fighting.