Dr. Don - Chapter 2

Leo squirmed in panic and did everything he could to escape. But the seat-belts would barely let him move anything but his head. The sharp blade of the power tool was rotating in extreme speed as Donnie carefully lowered it towards Leo's vulnerable front. The machine was emitting a strong, stinging smell of burnt plastic, giving Leo the impression that this device also originated from the junkyard. Leo watched in horror as it wasn't even an inch away from him. He was well aware of the protective ability of his breastplate, but he had no idea how it would feel like to have it cut open by an electric saw. And frankly, he did not share his brother's enthusiasm to find out.

"Donnie! DONNIE!" Leo yelled, in order to be heard over the machine. "You can't do this! Please, this is so, SO wrong… You have to realize that. Donnie? Donnie, you have to STOP!"

To his surprise, Donnie suddenly turned off the tool, and moved his goggles back to his forehead with a wondering look at his brother.

"Would you like to be sedated during this procedure?" he asked, and tilted his head curiously.

"I don't want you to do it at all!" Leo exclaimed in anger, and stared at the sharp tool in horror. Dreading the moment it would roar to life again.

"Good, because I'm afraid I spent most sedatives on Master Splinter," Donnie said, apparently interpreting Leo's answer as a 'no'. "You'd be surprised how tricky it is to figure out the right dosage for a mutated man-rat... Unless you want to kill it, of course."

He made a nervous laugh at the last add and scratched his neck, as if he had made a mildly successful joke. The scientist stopped almost immediately as he seemed to remember something. He put away the hand-saw and went over to his desk, where he loudly rummaged through a drawer. Leo raised an eyebrow when Donnie came back with a black marker in his hand.

"Also," he added encouragingly, and rested a hand on Leo's chest as he, with great concentration, started to mark out certain spots on his plastron. "by not sedating you, I can find out exactly how much strain the shell can endure before the body starts experiencing discomfort."

"... Are you saying that you want to see me in pain?" Leo asked, and stared at the tall turtle with an unreadable look.

"Not really," Donnie answered, and barely looked up at the question. "It's not exactly something I'd enjoy watching. I prefer to think of it as an inevitable consequence of a necessary procedure."

Leo had no idea how to respond to this. The whole situation felt surreal to him. And the fact that his brother was currently drawing on his chest didn't exactly help. Leo had barely noticed that his breathing had quickened, but Donnie apparently had. He swiftly glanced at Leo with a raised eyebrow.

"Why do you look so nervous? Are you worried about the test?" Donnie asked, in surprise. "Don't be. According to my estimation, this shouldn't be worse than anything you haven't felt before. I'm sure you can handle it. You're threshold of pain is rather impressive."

Donnie smiled at him as if he had just given Leo a compliment. Leo answered by tugging at the belts again. Maybe he had managed to loosen them up a little? Or maybe he could break free from them if he really put his mind into it… Donnie had probably found them at the junkyard along with the rest of the stuff, so how strong could they be?

Donnie watched his brother struggle with the straps for a moment with a concerned look. He then put down the marker and reached for something in his pocket. Leo immediately tensed up and stopped his attempts. He watched Donnie with a wary look, but then blinked in surprise when Donnie picked up the lollipop again. The scientist studied the candy for a second, and then smiled as he offered it to Leo.

"No thank you," Leo said deadpan.

"It'll make you feel better," Donnie encouraged.

"No it won't," Leo told him firmly. "The only thing that would make me feel better right now is if you loosened these straps."

"Are you sure…?" Donnie asked, in a tantalizing way, ignoring Leo's request. "It's strawberry."

"Pass," Leo answered.

"Or maybe you'd prefer lemon-"

Donnie trailed off as Leo gave him an irritated glare, making the other turtle sigh and turn away. But the scientist seemed to quickly shake off the rejection as he happily put the lollipop in his own mouth instead. He frowned slightly at the taste.

"Huh. I was wrong," Donnie stated, and took out the candy to look at it. "It kinda tastes like cherry."

Donnie observed the sweet for a few seconds. He then made a light shrug and put the lollipop back in his mouth with a pleased look. Leo watched his brother uncertainly as he picked up the marker again and went back to drawing on Leo's torso.

"What exactly are you doing over there?" Leo asked with an awkward look, stretching his neck in an attempt to see what Donnie was up to. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm not a whiteboard."

"It wouldn't make much sense if you were, since this is a permanent marker," Donnie pointed out, as he circled something on Leo's left side. "I'm just outlining where it should be safe to do the incisions. In case I go too deep and damage your internal organs. I actually should have done this from the start, especially considering that this power tool is way inadequate for anything involving precision."

He gave Leo a reassuring look as he made a straight line right over his midsection as a finishing touch, and picked up the saw again. He then hesitated and sniffed the air suspiciously. Donnie followed the smell to the tool and gave it an unfavorable look. Apparently, he wasn't a fan of the burnt plastic smell the appliance so generously shared with its surroundings. Donnie went over to his desk again, and soon returned with a white surgical mask. There was a crunching sound as he bit off the candy in his mouth and tossed the stick aside before putting the mask over his face.

"Alrighty then," he declared, and started the machine again. "Let's get this over with, shall we?"

His eyes were smiling when he covered them with the goggles. The dark, protective glass hid them completely, only leaving a pair of black voids instead of eyes. Together with the mask, the goggles stripped his face of all emotions, only leaving a nameless being with an electrical saw and every intention to use it. The air escaped Leo's lungs when the noisy device once again was aimed at his body.

"Wait, stop. STOP! Donnie, listen to me!" Leo insisted. His heart was pounding so hard in his chest that it felt like it was trying to beat him up on the inside. "You don't wanna do this. You can't do this! Do you understand? Don, can you hear me? For crying out loud, this is wrong! Can't you see- No, no, stop! Please, Donnie, don't- ah- AAAH!"

Leo made a sharp inhale when he felt the toothed edge make contact with his armored front. He closed his eyes tightly with an agonizing expression, unable to watch what was happening. He could almost feel how tiny fragments of his shell hit his face from the brute, invading force. He felt ill to his stomach. A part of him wished that he could just abandon his body, and come back another day when this whole nightmare was over. It had to be a nightmare. This couldn't be happening to him for real. There was no way that his own brother was standing above him right now, trying to saw through his shell just to satisfy some messed up scientific curiosity. Not Donatello. Never him.

Leo wished that the illusion could have stayed with him a little longer. He screamed when he felt a sudden searing pain hit his upper right body.

"I said: HELLOOOO! Donnie? Can you hear me? I've been calling for, like, five times!"

"Eleven, actually..." Donnie mumbled miserably, like someone who had given up on ever feeling happy ever again.

Leo barely reacted to the loud, familiar voice at first. He didn't even become aware of his surroundings until he felt how the torturing pressure on his chest was lifted, and how the deafening sound of the machine stopped for a second time.

"Oh," Mikey answered in surprise. "So... You can hear me?"

"Yes, I can...!" Donnie replied tiredly, and rubbed his left ear with a grimace as he moved his goggles and mask aside. "Look, if I don't answer when it's obvious that I should have heard you, it's safe to assume that I simply don't have the time to talk, okay? There's no need to bust someone's ear-drums just to make sure that they haven't gone deaf. In fact, such an action would most certainly impair someone's hearing for real."

Leo was still panting heavily from Donnie's 'test' when he finally recognized Mikey's voice. He quickly turned his head to the direction of the sound, as to make sure that it really was his little brother that he had heard. He wasn't disappointed. Michelangelo was standing at the entrance of the lab, and was currently flipping the TV-remote between his hands like some sort of toy.

"Heh, sorry bro," Mikey said, and gave Donnie an apologetic smile, but then happily strolled inside with the device. "But could you take a look at the remote? I don't know what's wrong with it. It doesn't wanna change channel, or sound, or… Okay, it doesn't do anything remotey at all. I think someone busted it. And I swear it wasn't m-"

Mikey suddenly stopped halfway through the area, and looked up at the scene in front of him. He seemed to just now have noticed the lab-coat Donnie was wearing. Along with the mask around his neck, the goggles on his head, and the electric hand-saw in his grasp. Mikey's eyes then fell upon Leo, who was lying on a table next to Donnie's desk in a firmly secured position. Leo looked at Mikey with eyes that were screaming.

All three turtles just stood there and blinked at each other for several seconds, not saying a word. The situation almost looked comical.

"You guys never tell me stuff!" Mikey suddenly exclaimed, with an upset look at his brothers, as if he'd been left out from a secret club-meeting. "Fine! Maybe I'll go off and do something that you don't know about. By myself! Then you'll see how fun-"

"Mikey, listen!" Leo called out hurriedly in short breaths. "Go find Raph. Get him here right now! Donnie's gone nuts!"

"I haven't gone nuts'," Donnie claimed with a bored voice, and rolled his eyes. "I'm merely taking my research to the next level in order to speed up the progress of creating a retro-mutagen. You even offered to help me, remember?"

"I didn't ask to be cut in half with a saw!"

"Stop overreacting, I would never do that," Donnie claimed with a dismissive wave, but then looked thoughtful. "However, if I wanted to dissect you, a simple Y-incision through the chest would be a much more professional approach."

"… You guys are totally messing with me, aren't ya'?" Mikey asked, and looked between his two brothers with a suspicious look.

"Mikey, please!" Leo yelled insistently, with piercing eyes. "Just run! NOW!"

Mikey still looked thoroughly confused over the bizarre situation. But there was something about the urgency in Leo's voice and the desperation in his eyes that made Mikey realize that whatever was going on, it wasn't right. He slowly took two big steps backwards, away from the scene. Then one more, for good measure. In the next second, he turned around and made a dash for the exit, like a rabbit for a burrow.

Donnie sighed at this, and reached for his staff that was leaning towards the desk. He skillfully spun it in his hand, while watching Mikey's movements closely. He then let go of his weapon and watched it soar through the air. It hit his younger brother right behind his knees. The freckled turtle yelped in surprise as he ungracefully tumbled around on the ground and ended up on his stomach.

"I keep telling you: don't run around in my lab," Donnie explained, with an annoyed gesture, as he walked over to his brother. "You could break something."

"… Like me?" Mikey suggested, with an uncertain smile at him.

"For example," Donnie nodded, and offered him a hand to help him up.

Mikey looked back and forth between Donnie and the outstretched hand with a puzzled expression. Obviously uncertain of why the hand that just had assaulted him suddenly wanted to assist him. After some hesitation, he took it and let Donnie pull him back up on his feet. The orange clad turtle gave Leo a lost expression, as if he deeply wished that someone could explain the situation to him.

"Do you still have the TV-remote?" Donnie asked Mikey, as he picked up his staff from the floor.

"Um... Sorta?" Mikey answered hesitantly, and held up the gadget. He had to use both his hands, since it was the only way to keep the crushed pieces somewhat connected. "I think it kinda ended up underneath me?"

"Well," Donnie pondered, as he curiously poked at the remains. "judging by its current state of structure, I'd say that's a fair assumption."

"Sooo..." Mikey stretched out the words in a stalling way, and subtly tried to make eye-contact with Leo. "Maybe I'll go away while you, like… you know… Fix it or something?"

"If I can fix it," Donnie answered, with a skeptic look at the pieces. He leaned his staff towards the wall as he went through one of his pockets. "Just give me a sec."

His hand came back holding a cable-tie. Before Mikey had time to react, the older turtle had wrapped it around his brother's outstretched hands, locking them tightly together.

"... Hey, uncool- OOF!"

Donnie had swiftly taken his bō and hit Mikey hard in the stomach with it, knocking the air out of the younger turtle. Before Mikey could catch his breath, his brother used the weapon to push him in the opposite direction. Mikey stumbled backwards until he hit a revolving chair a few steps behind him and fell down in it, making the chair roll away several feet and slam into the nearest wall. Mikey looked up dizzily from the unexpected impact, and barely noticed that Donnie was already by his side, securing his body to the chair with a white power cord.

"Okay… I think that should do it," Donnie decided, when he had finished the last knot on Mikey's upper body and then used another cable-tie to force his feet together. "Sorry about the improvised placement, I didn't really expect to have another specimen so soon. I'm not even sure what to do with you yet..."

"Maybe let him go?" Leo proposed sincerely.

"No, I think we better keep him here," Donnie concluded after some thinking, and moved Mikey like a wheel-chair to a more comfortable distance from the working desk. "Like you said earlier, it's kinda unnerving when he's on his own. This way, we can both keep an eye on him. And you don't have to worry about getting ambushed by water balloons."

Donnie reached his destination, but suddenly frowned and observed Mikey for a second. He then turned around to Leo with an annoyed stare.

"He's totally gonna try to wheel away in this thing, isn't he?" he asked, and pointed at the subject with his thumb.

"What? Nooo…" Leo assured him, with a nervous laugh. "I can't imagine that."

Donnie watched Leo for a moment, but then turned his eyes back to the revolving chair. Mikey had already made it move several inches away from Donnie's side by pushing it away with his toes. When he realized that his attempts had been discovered, he made an apologetic laugh and pulled his knees up innocently.

"... Keep your feet up," Donnie instructed, and grabbed his staff again. He walked up to the turtle, ejected the naginata blade, and then slashed it four times at the chair's lower regions. Mikey made a startled squeak as Donnie chopped off the chair's only means of transport. The wheels rolled away in swirly patterns all over the floor, leaving the younger turtle completely stranded. Mikey tried to catch a glimpse of the destruction underneath him, but got distracted when Donnie crouched beside him and used the gas-lift to elevate his seat.

"Oh, come on!" Mikey complained, as he realized that he couldn't reach the floor anymore. "Not cool, dude! Not cool! Why is this chair so high anyway? Who needs a chair this high?!"

"I got longer legs than you." Donnie shrugged, and glanced at a nearby watch. "I need to check on my samples now. It could take a little while, so I would greatly appreciate it if you two could keep it down a bit? I haven't slept very well, so I really need all the concentration I can get..."

Donnie left his brother's side and walked over to his working desk. He quickly retrieved a vial of blood from the min-fridge and applied the content on a glass slide.

"... Bro," Mikey said, in a very loud whisper to Leo. "I think Donnie is a few pepperonis short of a good pizza, if you know what I mean."

"That's a bold statement coming from someone who's about as sharp as an ellipse," Donnie muttered, and looked up from his work with a narrow look. "And for your information; that was for all intents and purposes not a whisper. I can barely hear myself think over here."

"... Is he sick or something?" Mikey carefully asked Leo in a lower voice, as he watched how Donnie went back to work.

"What kind of disease would make him act like this?" Leo asked, with a careful glance at the preoccupied scientist. "It's so weird, I mean... He's still Donnie, but it's almost as if he doesn't get that he's doing something wrong. He doesn't understand… It's like someone pressed a button and turned off that part of the brain that's... supposed to warn you when you're about to do something crazy."

"I swear I didn't push any buttons this time, honest!" Mikey claimed with an insistent look at Leo, but made a surprised frown when he noticed his brother's chest. "Dude, what did he do to you?"

Leo had to think twice before he understood what Mikey was referring to. He hadn't even looked at the spot on his plastron that Donnie had been working on. Leo quickly closed his eyes and turned away his head with a pained look.

"… is it bad?" He asked with an uneasy sigh, not sure if he wanted to know the answer.

"Your chest kinda looks like a treasure map," Mikey informed him straightforward, and studied the patterns from the black marker with interest. "With a lot of treasures... Does that count as bad?"

Leo took a deep breath before he glanced at the area. He couldn't quite distinguish Donnie's drawings, which seemed to consist mostly of lines and letters, but he could see the cut from the saw. It didn't appear to go deep, but it was hard to tell for certain. He could still feel a throbbing pain emanating from it. He turned his head to catch a glimpse of the saw. The blade looked like it was covered with tiny spots of rust. Or blood. It was hard to see the difference from his angle.

"I guess it could be worse." Leo swallowed uncomfortably, and decided not to dwell on what would have happened if Mikey hadn't showed up when he did.

"I'm not so sure," Mikey said, and shook his head knowingly. "That stuff doesn't come off. You remember when we were kids and you guys drew on me? It took like weeks before it disappeared. I even tried with soap. Didn't even smudge it a little."

"Wasn't it Raph who drew on you…?"

"Yeah, but you didn't stop him…" Mikey reminded him, with an accusing look.

"Okay, maybe. But right now, Raph is our best hope," Leo told him, in a low voice. "He has to realize that something is wrong soon. And when he does, I can't picture Donnie being able to stop him."

"And that will be the end of Dr Donnie-stein!" Mikey announced cheerfully. "No, wait, Dooms-Don! Or Professor Donato, or the Terror-Tello! Or Dr Dona-"

"Stop it!" Leo scolded. "You can't give him one of your monster-names, he's our brother!"

"… Donnie Darko!"

"Mikey, I will kick you...!"

"I don't think you can reach me," Mikey informed him with a superior smile, as he started to spin the chair, with the great skill of someone who has turned the act into an art form.

He was so caught up in the spinning that he didn't notice that his elevated feet accidentally hit a small nearby table with some lab equipment. Mikey stopped the moment he saw the wobbling table with the fragile looking glassware, and both he and Leo cringed when some empty bottles rolled off and loudly crashed to the floor. The noise made Donnie cry out in surprise, and the two turtles turned around just in time to see Donnie, with poor juggling skills, trying to save two vials from falling off the table. The blood filled containers slipped through his insufficient number of fingers, and soon joined their neighbors on the floor in a puddle of glass and liquid.

"Oh man..." Donnie moaned, with an unhappy look at the mess in his lab. "Nice going, Mikey! Look what you made me do."

"It wasn't my fault. You put me in a chair that goes like this!" he argued, and made the chair spin again to emphasize his point. "Who would put glass-stuff next to that?"

"He kinda has a point, you know," Leo felt the need to point out.

Donnie facepalmed and shook his head, apparently recognizing Leo's impeccable logic and wishing that he could have seen this coming. He turned back to the broken glass with a sigh.

"Terrific," he stated bitterly. "I can't continue unless I get new vials of samples. Guess it's only fair to make this Mikey's turn..."

He went back to his desk and picked up the same kind of syringe he had used on Leo earlier.

"What? No, you can't," Leo said sternly, and stared at the syringe. "Donnie, put that thing back. Put it back now! You're not doing this to Mikey!"

"What is it? What's he talking about?" Mikey wondered curiously, and tried to spin the chair to get a clearer view on what Donnie was fiddling with.

"It was an accident…!" Leo tried to argue. "Are you really gonna punish him for something he didn't even mean to do?"

"I'm not trying to punish him. I'm just allowing him to replace the samples he destroyed," Donnie explained with a reasonable voice as he studied the needle, but then he seemed to remember something. "Oh, right, I need the 100 milliliter."

He put the tool back and instead picked up a syringe that looked like it was the bigger, meaner cousin of the first one.

"Donnie, you can't hurt him!" Leo protested, with an angry look at the taller turtle. "You can't hurt your own little brother!"

"He's gonna hurt me with that thing?!" Mikey cried out in sudden realization. His eyes were fixed on the sharp tool in horror. "For real? With that?!"

"Thanks a lot, Leo. Now you've scared him," Donnie scolded, with a reproachful look at the leader.

"I don't want him to take my blood! I like my blood, I wanna keep it!" Mikey yelled in panic, and shook his head so violently that the chair wobbled slightly.

"Don't be such a baby, you have approximately 1,2 gallons of the stuff. You're not even gonna miss it," Donnie informed him in annoyance, as he made his way to Mikey while studying the size of the needle. "You might feel a slight pinch though…"

"Wait! Let me do it," Leo suddenly exclaimed, his eyes watching Donnie intently. "Take my blood instead."

Donnie stopped in his track and turned towards Leo with a frown.

"Why?" he asked, with his hands out in a wondering gesture.

"Because..." Leo began hesitantly. He hadn't expected Donnie to ask for an elaboration. "Just… Look how much he's moving around. He's clearly upset. It's gonna take you forever to get a good sample from him when he's like that, right?"

"I could always just knock him out," Donnie mused.

"Or, "Leo hurriedly interrupted, not wanting Donnie to get too familiar with the idea. "you could use me instead. It makes sense. You've just lost your samples, and every minute wasted on getting new ones from Mikey is time you could spend on something more important. If you use me, I won't fight back. You can take as much as you want, and you'll get what you need way faster. And if you really need a sample from Mikey too, you could always do that later, right?"

"… I suppose the result would be less inconsistent if I used the same DNA as the first batches," Donnie said and scratched the back of his neck in a contemplative way. He then shrugged and walked up to Leo instead.

He positioned himself at Leo's left side with his back towards Mikey, looking for a good area to insert the needle.

"But I strongly recommend you to not tense up like you did the last time," Donnie warned, and poked Leo's arm until he found a favorable spot. "It will be less painful that way. And I don't think I need to tell you; this is a bigger needle."

"... I'll try." Leo nodded slightly, and closed his eyes.

"Sorry, bro..." Mikey said in a broken voice, watching in distress how his big brother's face winced when the thick needle entered his body.

Next Time: Leo won't let Donnie hurt Mikey, but how long can he keep this up? And things take a grim turn when it's revealed that Donnie has been conducting another experiment on the side.