Some of you already guessed that the song for Act 7 was "Shatter Me" by Lindsey Stirling and Lizzy Hale. I will say that even I'm not sure entirely who it is really about. Don? The Architect? The Hamato Clan? Mortu? The Heart? The lyrics work in a lot of different ways, which was part of why I liked it for this one.

Also, if you reread the first chapter, you can almost feel the opening notes of the song playing in Don's mind. The isolation and desolation of the music box is right there amidst the stars.

Anyway, as mentioned last week, this is the final chapter before we're on to Act 8. And...there's a lot to do in 8. Honestly. Act 8 is going to take us all the way into mid-to-late December.

But there's a lot here, too. And some things I think none of you were expecting. From your reviews and comments, several of my tricks and clues got spotted – but I am DELIGHTED to note that my biggest ones passed utterly unnoticed. (To be fair, you won't get the full explanation until next week.)

I hope this is everything you wanted, and more. I have been waiting, eagerly, to drop this for you.

Enjoy!

Chapter 5: Shine

A quiet plain on the side of Center City opposite the Heart lit up with sudden red light. When the light faded, dozens of Utrom blinked in the sunlight.

"It worked!"

The Utrom crowded around their commander, already shouting in a cacophony.

"How do we contact the Council?"

"We need discs and suits!"

"Isn't it too soon? They said it would be later!"

"They need help!"

The commander raised herself up on all her legs. "Silence!"

She was obeyed at once.

"If there has been a change of plan, it means we are even more urgently needed. We must hurry. We must intercept the Secrete and the Guardians before they reach the Heart. We must ensure we uphold the trust that has been placed in us!"

She pinned them with hard, determined eyes.

"Every one of you is clear on what we must do, correct?"

"Yes, commander!" they called back in one voice.

"Good. Then go, all of you, as fast as you can. It does not matter who is first, but I am counting on you all to reach as many ports as possible so we can accomplish our mission before it is too late. Now run!"

The company of Utrom began to sprint for the city.

-==OOO==-

"What have you done, Donatello? My sensors report conflicting information. I demand an explanation!"

Don didn't answer until the Architect stopped firing the laser he was holding back.

"Get used to disappointment!" Don called back. "By the time you figure it out, it'll be too late."

"This should not be possible! You did not have access to my code!"

Don let out a broken laugh. "Not much fun when somebody messes with your head without permission, is it?"

"I will complete my task with or without your assistance, Donatello, and when order is established, I may be forced to punish you for your actions. Stop now, or any possible future partnership between us will be destroyed."

The medallion platform Donatello had revealed began to shift to one side as the entire bottom of the chamber started to open.

"Yeah. About that." Donatello held up the communicator and datapad at his hip, the one he had modified so many times. He keyed in a short command.

"You have hidden your subroutines from me!"

Don shrugged. "Uh...I guess that's one way of putting it." He glanced down. "Look out below!" And he executed the command.

There was a controlled explosion much higher up in the chamber. The ledge on which Donatello stood became dislodged from the wall.

Donatello tucked Byakko away and made a running leap from his level to the one where Master Splinter had emerged. Don caught the ledge and hauled himself up.

He looked across to his father. "Master Splinter, you weren't supposed to...uh…"

"I know, my son." Splinter's face was mostly composed, though a flash of pain went through it for just an instant. "But the situation has changed slightly. It was necessary for me to bring you a message."

"What's that?"

"That more time is needed."

Don let out an aggrieved sigh. "Figures."

He drew out the datapad once more and pulled up a screen scrolling numbers and code.

"My son." Splinter stepped to his side. "I cannot allow you to resort to your final plan."

"Well," and Don managed a half-smile at him, "it's a good thing then that I've got three plans before that one, then. Right?"

"Yes."

"But we better clear out. This area's next to go." Don peered at his father for a moment. "I think this'll be easier."

He drew Byakko again. Splinter, understanding, held still.

"Don! Sensei!" Leo was yelling upwards, ducking as debris fell in from above. "Are you okay?"

"We're fine!" Don yelled back. "Incoming one Master!"

Don unleashed Byakko's powers and they scooped up Splinter as gently as the rat had been held in Donatello's mental grip. Donatello kept his whole focus on Byakko and his father until Splinter was safe on the stable area below with his brothers.

Then he hit the next command on the datapad and the ledge on which he was standing also gave way.

Raph called out, "Donnie! Watch out!"

Dangling far above with one hand clinging to the wall, Donatello looked down, his face pinched with an annoyed frown.

"You watch out! I actually planned for this!"

And he let himself fall. But as he did, the bright wind of Byakko rose and caught him, allowing him to control his descent. Don landed easily on the platform far below.

"See?"

Suddenly there was a rush and three sets of turtle arms were wound around Donatello heedless of the four Fangs of the Dragon, the debris from above, or the clanking of the ship opening below.

Don remembered when another Raphael had thrown his arms around him, burying his face against Don's plastron – a Raphael who had lost an eye in a world that had lost all hope – and shivered at the similarity. This time, though, Mikey was curled around his side, one arm along the top of Don's shell and the other on the back of Raph's neck. And Leo somehow managed to get his arms around all three of them, pulling Don sideways until his head rested on Leo's shoulder.

Words tripped together as none of them could quite manage a coherent sentence.

"Donnie! We thought…"

"How did you...?"

"...so sorry."

Donatello's heart thumped strangely and he tried to get an arm or a hand on each of his brothers, holding on as if he would never let go.

They're really here. They came back.

If this is all I get...if it ends now…if I never have another moment like this...

It was enough.

"My sons!"

They were broken from the embrace by Splinter's sharp voice. Instinct and training collided and all four fell out of the hug with their hands on their weapons.

Splinter was looking not up, but down.

"Something is happening below."

Don nodded and strode to the edge of his platform, the rest following in his wake.

"What's it doing?" Leo asked.

"The Architect is going to deploy an external interface to try to link with the Heart the way it linked with me and everybody else it came across. If it manages to interface with the Heart, well…" He grimaced. "The best we could hope for is that it works and the Architect takes over the Homeworld and the Collective."

Mikey's eyes bugged out. "That's the best?"

"Yup."

"What's the worst?"

"That the interface causes the Heart to fail and the Homeworld and everything connected to it dies instantly, including every Utrom in the galaxy in both this dimension and every other in existence."

"Shell!" Raph looked across to Don. "This was seriously your plan?"

"Well, not all of it! I didn't say we were going to let the Architect get that far, did I?"

"Donnie." Leo's steadiness drew their attention. Leo's expression was calm and focused, the look he had worn every time the world fell apart and he and his brothers stood up to try to save it.

Don met Leo's eyes and might have wept for the sheer relief of falling in beside his brother and leader once more – except that there was no time. And that, in this, it was Don's burden to lead the way.

"I need you to tell us your plan. What do you need us to do?"

Don gave a short nod. "I will. But give it a minute first."

Leo raised an eye-ridge.

Don shrugged. "Easier to do it all at once. Mortu's not here yet, but I know he's already on his way."

"How did you know we brought Mortu with us?" Mikey asked.

Don smiled. "Because I've been tracking you all since you first escaped the Architect."

-==OOO==-

When the ship hovering above the Heart cracked open, Mortu felt torn between responsibilities.

His first and primary duty as a member of the Secrete Obscura – and as an Utrom – was to defend the Heart by any means necessary.

But that duty did not change the fact that Donatello was above him on that ship somewhere.

And, if Mortu was honest with himself, he felt certain that he could not protect the Heart without Donatello at his side. That any power Mortu himself possessed would lie dormant until the turtle who had become his family was returned to him, anyway.

And, on a practical level, Mortu could do very little against the massive ship from the outside with nothing to offer but a slightly-damaged hover disc. But he might find a way to protect the Heart and save Donatello within.

Mortu gave the Heart one last glance, not daring to touch it for he did not wish to open the protective shield that was the only defense it had left. Then he shot upwards on his disc, flying through the growing opening into building-sized ship and hoping that the turtles would be somewhere he could locate them quickly. He spotted them almost at once, poised on a platform straight up inside the ship which was still moving ominously downward.

However, Mortu had not expected to see Donatello and Splinter standing with them.

"Donatello!" Mortu called out.

"It's cool, Mortu!" Mikey yelled. "He's our Donnie again!"

"He was always our Donnie, you shell-for-brains!" Raph reached over and smacked him. "He was just playing possum to get close to the Architect so he could kick his computerized shell."

Mortu ignored the mixed metaphors and looked to Leonardo and Splinter. "Is this true?" He could not quite bear to look into Donatello's eyes, not when he might see coldness.

But Splinter was smiling and Leo nodded. "It's true. He already turned on the Architect."

"Mortu."

Mortu swiveled in the air until he was face-to-face with Donatello.

Don's own expression was crestfallen. "I'm...I'm so sorry, Mortu."

Mortu's palate began to ache where a human would burst into tears. The plight of the Homeworld, of the Heart, it all dimmed in importance for that one instant.

He had not failed Donatello. He had not all of lost his family.

Mortu gave an inarticulate cry and darted forward.

Don made a watery smile and hugged Mortu just as he had that day so long ago when they retrieved the victims of the Architect.

But even the hug couldn't halt the urgency of their situation.

"Mortu," Don said, "I've already sent a message to Bonani in case he wakes up. I sent a few others to people we trust, but there's no telling how many will get through the interference of the shield. The shield works both ways – it's keeping everyone else out, but it's also keeping any damage from the Architect in."

Mortu drew back. "How did you send Owens a message?"

"I used my digitization process to transport a datapad with my notes to his location, same as I sent one to the High Council and the others."

Leo blinked. "But, Don, how could you know where Guardian Owens is right now? He could be anywhere."

"I used the readings from his last known location and what Mortu said about his injuries and assumed he wouldn't have gone far."

"You've been tracking us all along you said?" Mikey asked.

Don nodded.

Leo frowned. "How did you follow our movements so closely?"

Don tipped his head towards Mortu. "When you were ported back to the escape pod the first time you met the Architect, I added a bug to your disc with a digital relay through quantum space to negate most of the lag. I've been listening in ever since, whenever I could spare the time."

"Like, seriously?" Raph looked at him. "You heard us? I mean...you heard everything we were saying and stuff?"

Don's eyes went steady and soft. "Yes, I did. Sorry."

"No, it's okay," Mikey said and even Raph nodded. "It's just...it's weird to try to remember how much stuff I said and whether or not you heard it."

"I heard a lot of it, anyway."

"My sons," Splinter put in, "this is less important than our current situation. We must act quickly or we may be forced to take drastic measures." As he said this last, he stared at Donatello; Don looked away after a moment.

"Right." Leo shook himself. "So what's the plan?"

Don took a deep breath. "Okay. Everybody listen, because I'm only going to be able to say this once."

And he abruptly switched to Japanese.

"Just before I started setting off the strategic explosions you've already seen, I arranged a deletion of Japanese from the Architect's language library and translators, but there's no telling if there's a backup file somewhere behind the Architect's couple thousand firewalls, so I have to say this fast or we run the risk of it booting one and getting wise.

"Okay. So there's a Plan A , a Plan B, and a Plan C." And a Plan D – D for destruction, I guess – but you're not going to like it so we'll just skip over that. He didn't so much as glance at Splinter because his father knew all about Plan D. "Plan A involves shutting down the Architect's ship by cutting the relays that connect the Architect's AI to the ship itself but otherwise leaving the ship and the Architect intact. There's a lot of knowledge knotted up in the Architect's databases, and while I've backed up and exported as much as I could, I don't want to lose it if I don't have to.

"But Plan A might not work just because the Architect is really hard to root out of systems while they're running and there's only so much we can do. That's why we have Plan B. With Plan B, we attack the Architect's digital defenses and try to damage its internal AI enough that it can't function. Plan B is a little easier to do, but a little less likely to succeed. Still, we have to try.

"The only way A or B will work is if we allow the Architect to begin the process of preparing to interface with the Heart. That's when all its firewalls and internal defenses will have to drop in order for its core coding to reach the Heart directly. When that happens, either A or B will succeed – or within a matter of minutes we'll have to switch and start in on Plan C.

"Plan C involves giving up on shutting the Architect down and instead taking the ship apart with the Architect still on it. For that, we'll definitely need the Fangs of the Dragon because their power is probably the only thing strong enough to do any real damage. If A and B fail, we can fall back to C, but we can't start there."

When he stopped for breath, Mortu answered also in Japanese. "How do we assist you with the first two plans, then?"

Don couldn't help but smile. "Honestly? All we have to do is keep the Architect really distracted and focused on us while we make it harder for it to physically link with the Heart. Plan A and B are already underway."

Mikey grinned. "I'm good at distraction!"

"Then let's do it," Leo said. "Don, you'll tell us when we need to switch from distraction to attack?"

"Yes," Don answered. "But no matter what, don't you dare do any significant damage to the ship itself until I give the word. There are way too many lives hanging in the balance."

Everyone around him, except, again, Splinter, was surprised.

"Never mind," Don said, switching back to English. "We need to start moving."

Don turned in place and started climbing down the nearest wall of the chamber from his medallion platform – which was beginning to shift aside, revealing the broad opening down to where the Heart glowed with a golden light. After less than a moment, everyone else fell in behind him.

"Donatello," came the voice of the Architect. "I have permitted you and these others to remain because I would still rather bring you all into order than end your lives. However, if you act against me, I will eliminate you now rather than risk you interfering with my task."

"Don't worry," Don said. "You're never going to get the chance."

"You are incorrect, Donatello. I am initiating the interface now."

"Not on our watch!" Raph yelled.

From the walls around the chamber, a series of claw-like limbs emerged. There were six in total, spread at equal points, which were all thickly layered with wires and biotechnology. These began to descend towards the shield that guarded the Heart.

"Don?" Leo asked.

Don read the entire question in just his name and nodded. "Go for it."

"Right. Shoot them down!" Leo ordered.

Mikey looked at Inazuma stuck in his belt. "Uh...are these things gonna work?"

"Yes, they will," Don answered. "As long as that platform up there is mostly intact, and as long as you can remember how to focus, it'll do the same thing the amulets did, though with a little less power, probably."

Raph grinned with feral light. "Wanna bet? All right, Banrai! Let's do this!"

"Go go Inazuma!" Mikey whooped.

Red and orange light lit up the pair and after a moment the light resolved into the lines of their energies just as they had once before. The light was perhaps paler than it had been, and slightly less robust, but the Fangs of the Dragon responded nonetheless. Blasts of power erupted from both as they each concentrated on one of the arms.

"I will handle this one," Splinter said, leaping to the nearest claw and striking at every joint that was exposed.

"I'll do what I can from over here," Mortu offered, crossing the open air to the farthest one and pulling out his own claws from his disc.

Leo looked to Donatello and then glanced at where he had stuck Kiryoku in his belt behind his shell. "Don?"

Don smiled at him. "It's not quite like Gunshin was, and it's not fire-based, but I'm sure you'll get the hang of it."

"Do I even want to know how you made a Fang of the Dragon all by yourself?"

Don adjusted his position on the wall so he could brace his shell better and drew Byakko.

"First of all, I didn't do it by myself. I had help from both the Ancient One and the aforementioned Dragon itself." He winked at Leo's surprised expression. "And second of all, I didn't make it at all. I just called it into existence from where it has always been waiting for you."

"For me?"

"Yup."

Turning away with a quick smile, Don lowered Byakko and summoned the wind.

There was but one clawed arm left not being handled and Leo turned to focus on it. Kiryoku felt warm in his hands when he drew it, warm and right even though it was a type of sword he had never used before.

Leo allowed himself an instant to close his eyes and pray.

Please let me be worthy of your power so I can protect my family and this world. Kiryoku, Inner Strength, Spirit of Will, stand with me now.

And Leo let his own energy flow.

Don was right – it did not feel like Gunshin at all. This wasn't fire and power and raw strength. This was the ultimate form of the same focus that make Leonardo's blue energy show on his skin. This was the heart of that which guided him in battle to guard his family and uphold his honor. This was at the core of everything that mattered.

The bio-tech arm of the Architect's ship never stood a chance against Leonardo's unleashed spirit.

"Yeah!" Raph cheered as he watched Leo destroy the entire claw in one blast. "That's what I'm talkin' about!"

"Come on, Inazuma! We can't let him show us up!" Mikey redoubled his efforts on his own claw.

A beeping at Donatello's hip sounded a moment later. "Leo, cover me, will you please?"

"Sure thing." Leo changed targets, his blood and soul singing at the rightness of the sword in his hands.

Meanwhile, Donatello pulled his datapad from his belt and began typing furiously.

"My son?" Splinter called.

"The Architect is beginning its internal systems for integration." He didn't dare risk Japanese again just in case, but he hoped his family could hear what he didn't say.

Either Plan A or Plan B work right now or we're going to have a real problem on our hands.

Donatello took a deep breath. "Hey, guys? Watch out above!"

And he keyed another command.

The medallion platform suddenly began to move, tipping vertically and then sliding down inside the shaft like an elevator. Don watched it until it got to the very bottom where the shield of the Heart glowed.

"Don't go after this next one, okay?"

"Next what?" Mikey yelled back.

And a seventh arm appeared far below the other six, one that was scrawny and bare in comparison to the others, purely a metallic skeleton. This one grabbed Donatello's platform and disconnected it from the rest of the ship. Then the arm maneuvered the platform to the ground beside the Heart.

"Donatello!" the Architect's voice was less natural, tinny and stilted. "What have you done?"

"Hey, you give me six sectors to work in, I'm always going to find more to do!" Don yelled back.

"I am reading a virus attacking my code as well. This should not be possible."

"Sorry about that," Don said, and he really was a little sorry. "But the only time I could stop you, the only time I could shut you down, was when you opened up your coding to the Heart."

"Not to be picky," Mortu said as he dodged a grasping claw and let Raphael pound on it with Banrai instead, "but could you not have found an opportunity to simply destroy the ship instead?"

Don shook his head. "Nope. Because I found something inside the Architect's systems that was too precious to risk losing unless there was no other choice."

"And what's that?"

Don took a deep breath.

"The Architect still holds the brain patterns and memories of every single being it encountered before me."

"WHAT?"

"And I think...I think there's a way to put them back in the heads of everyone who still has a body alive to go back to. And for the rest, a body like Zayton's is better than nothing, but I've got some ideas about that, too."

Mortu gave a very human squawk. "All those victims? Those children? You can save them?"

"If we get the chance to try. I preserved them along with the rest of the Architect's files and there should already be backups of everything going all over the Homeworld, but there's always the chance that some data integrity will be lost in transit and so getting it directly from the ship would be best if possible, but..."

"Donatello!" Mortu cried, interrupting his babble. "How...how could you do all this?"

"Yeah!" Mikey called out. "I mean, I know you're good, but isn't this a little much even for you to handle on your own?"

A voice rang out. "Ah, but you have missed the obvious, my friends."

Everyone except for Donatello shifted focus up above their field of battle.

Three familiar forms stepped into the light and began to descend on a small protrusion.

Mortu actually careened backwards until he hit a support in pure shock. He opened and closed his mouth several times before he could force his voice to work.

"Krian'daren...Zayton...Leatherhead...you're alive!"

"You are correct that to implement such minute control within the programming of the Architect, plus maintaining the emotional and cognitive distance to keep his mind from being overridden, might have been beyond even our Donatello's extraordinary capabilities," Zayton said, and his voice was warm with pride.

"But we were not destroyed in the explosion. Donatello, from within the Architect, digitized us and hid us within the systems of the ship as cybernauts." Leatherhead's eyes were bright with emotion. "We have been assisting him ever since in preparation for this final venture."

"Viruses ourselves," Krian'daren said, her mouth bunched up in an enormous smile of her people. "Secrets and allies."

"However, we have done all we could in virtual form, even I," Zayton said.

"Now." Leatherhead turned to where Donatello's eyes were fixed on his datapad and the Heart below. "Now we will see if our work and our gamble will be enough."

"It must," said Splinter. "With all of us united, we will not fail."

Mortu finally shook himself just as the descending three reached the level of the others. On his disc, he darted forward, his face a wreck of emotions. He touched Krian'daren with his forelegs, then pressed his forehead first to Zayton, then to Leatherhead.

When he finally moved back, his eyes were able to blink back his feelings and he forced himself to return to his duty.

"Then let us not waste this opportunity!"

The Architect's voice rang out. "I will not permit you to keep me from my task!"

Don looked over to Zayton. "How close are we?"

"The attack proceeds well, but it may not be in time," Zayton replied. "I have taken remote command of more portions of the ship, but I cannot yet breach the final defenses of the Architect's installation."

"Does that mean it's time for Plan C?" Mikey yelled.

Leonardo and Raphael shared a look of satisfaction as they combined their energies to eliminate the last claw.

"Almost," Don said. He looked across. "Aunt Kria?"

Krian'daren clapped once, her people's version of a nod. "I am ready, young one."

"Donatello?" Mortu asked.

"Before we break anything important, I'm sending Aunt Kria back to her lab where the backup files for her patients will be. She'll need to gather a team to start working on them immediately if there's any chance of the data maintaining integrity long enough to do some good."

Krian'daren glanced around the group and finally settled her gaze between Mortu and Splinter.

"Take care of Donatello, I ask."

Before either of them could answer – before they could make a promise he might not let them keep – Donatello activated his digitization process one last time and Krian'daren vanished in a haze of red light.

"Okay. Everybody down to the Heart. And get ready!"

Mortu descended at once on his disc while the turtles and Splinter, and Leatherhead carrying Zayton, were obliged to jump and climb their way down. They all reached the warm earth of the planet within moments and formed up in front of the shield guarding the Heart.

"Zayton?" Don called.

The Professor shook his robotic head. "I've done all I can, but even now I cannot root the Architect out of the ship's mainframe. We must destroy the ship and hope our backups will be sufficient to save those lives we can."

"Right." Don looked around at his family – at both his families. "Everybody close your eyes."

And with a heavy, heavy heart, he executed the final command on his datapad.

A series of loud concussive blasts rocked the Architect's ship from above.

-==OOO==-

Guardian Owens could not read fast enough to keep up with all the details that were filtering in on one datapad from Donatello himself, from Zayton Honn'i'kedt – who was alive and it was too dangerous to rejoice but he would when he could – and on his own datapad from the many Utrom who had been on duty around the Heart and who had been feared dead.

But now they stood arrayed beside Bonani and all the other members of the Secrete Obscura and the Guardians – those who could be spared from patching up the Stem and protecting the High Council, anyway – at the edge of the shield.

The warning blazed across Donatello's datapad just a split-second before the shield fell.

"They have opted to destroy the Architect's ship," Bonani said. "We are advised to remain here until the ship is out of the air. We will not be able to protect the Heart if we are crushed."

As the shield came down, they could see the massive ship close to the ground and its long extension disappearing into a hole right over the Heart.

And then explosions rang out and flared brightly against the ship's exterior, the largest of which ripped apart the bridge of the ship – the area according to the data where the Architect's core code should have been stored.

"It's working!" shouted one of the Guardians.

But Bonani shook his head. "Even if the Architect is disabled, the ship itself is still a threat."

And the ship's engines began to fail.

"It's falling!" cried an Utrom in a panic.

Bonani closed his eyes.

"Even if the Architect is damaged or dying, the ship can still destroy us all. Now it is a missile poised over the Heart. And if it is not held back…if it crashes into the Heart..."

Taking a breath, Bonani looked at the Utrom gathered around.

"What are your orders?"

"Astrocyte Donatello commanded us to wait, no matter what," said the nearest Utrom. "And to trust in him."

-==OOO==-

Mortu gave a nearly panicked cry. "Protect the Heart at all costs!"

Leonardo raised his sword. Kiryoku. Hear me now. Lend me all your strength.

The strength of the Dragons.

The strength of my will.

To his left, he could sense Michelangelo and Raphael lighting up with the power that slept within them, brought out only by the presence of the platform – even a little cracked – that Donatello had built for them.

On his other side, Donatello met Leo's eyes. And Leo saw in Don all the gentleness and love and loyalty he had missed for so long.

The strength...of my family.

Don gave his brother a nod and brandished Byakko.

"Now!" Leo shouted.

All four turtles released the power of their Fangs.

The falling ship was halted in midair by their force, hanging perilously close to the Heart. A few dozen yards was all that separated the massive spaceship from the seemingly fragile shield that was the only defense left for the life of the planet and all its people.

A few dozen yards, and four magical weapons wielded by four very stubborn turtles.

Raphael gripped Banrai. "Come on! We can do this!"

Mikey grinned down at Inazuma. "I missed kicking shell with magic! It's totally awesome!"

"Don!" Leo called over his shoulder. "Is this really going to work?"

Don closed his eyes for a moment before he fixed his gaze on the ship. "It has to. Or else everything I've done, everything we've ever fought for, will be lost."

Leo turned back to the ship. "Good enough for me."

"Focus, my sons!" Splinter yelled. "Focus and find all the power you hold within!"

And then Mortu called out. "If you can reach the Heart with your minds, the Heart will lend you its strength as well!"

Don glared back at him. "No! We can't risk exposing it!"

"You must risk everything to save it!" Mortu yelled.

The ship lurched above them, swaying ominously.

"He's right." Leo glanced back to the shining shield behind them. "Donnie? How do we do that? We'll follow your lead."

"It's too dangerous!" Donatello's face was torn with emotion, though it wasn't easy to read which emotion – something between fury and fear. And sorrow.

"My son!" Splinter took a few steps forward. "Please! Trust in your brothers and in yourself. Trust that you will succeed if you open yourself to your true strength. Please do not follow the other path into darkness!"

"What's he talking about?" Zayton asked.

Leatherhead shook his head. "I don't know. But…"

"Leo." Don turned to his brother. "Hold it here. Give me as much time as you can."

"What are you going to do?"

"What I have to."

"No, my son!"

"Donatello!" Mortu flew to Donatello's side. "Whatever your choice, I am with you!"

"No, Mortu! Please!"

"Guys!" Michelangelo felt one foot sliding backwards. "Pick a plan and let's do it! We're kinda running low on margin for error here!"

Even as Byakko pointed unerringly up at the ship, Donatello ducked his head and hunched his shoulders. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, everyone."

"My son!"

Before Splinter could reach him, Donatello shifted Byakko's angle and used it to launch himself into the air. Mortu was momentarily caught in the blast of power but quickly righted himself and followed.

"Don!" Leo yelled. "What are you doing?"

Splinter darted to Donatello's place beside Leo. "He has a means of destroying the ship, but he will destroy himself in order to use it!"

"No!" Leatherhead roared.

"What are we gonna do?" Raph called. "We can't let him..."

And Leo finally understood the rest of the Ancient One's message. Understood that, no matter how badly he wanted to abandon his place, to rush after Donatello as Mortu had done, he couldn't. That he needed to choose the single correct course of action, the only one that wouldn't result in a loss he could not endure. And yet...to do that...he had to risk the only thing he truly wanted to save.

So he hardened his expression and dug in his feet. "We won't. We're going to save him."

-==OOO==-

Above, Mortu's damaged disc barely managed to keep up with Donatello as the turtle used Byakko to jump across the ship until he stood on top of it, high in the air over its centermost portion.

"You should call upon the Heart! It can lend you the strength you need!"

Don planted his feet and spun to face Mortu. "It's a risk I'm not willing to take. You could have opened the Heart too, or Leatherhead could. But the truth is that none of us wants to ask the Heart to be vulnerable. Not when we can't be sure it will be safe. Not when we might still drop a whole ship on top of it!"

"But!"

"You need to go, Mortu," Donatello said. He leaned Byakko on a nearby protrusion and held out his hands. A small, metallic sphere appeared in them.

"I'm not leaving you, Donatello."

Don squeezed his eyes shut. "It's not...I hoped it wouldn't come to this, but I kind of always thought it would. It's sort of fair, you know?"

"Fair how?"

"What I've done to the Homeworld and the Stem, what I almost let happen to the Heart...maybe this is always how I was going to have to atone for it all."

Mortu darted forward and pushed his forehead against Donatello's.

"You have committed crimes, yes, but you have also saved us. And you will save the Heart!" He glanced down to the device Donatello held. "What is it?"

"It's a self-contained disintegration bomb. Same principle as my digitization, really, but without actually storing or reformatting the matter it takes apart. It will annihilate everything within its radius. So it…"

"Will you survive its use?"

"No." Don closed his eyes. "It's unstable, and it has to be manually held at active status or it runs the risk of destroying itself too soon."

"There must be another way. We will activate it and use the claws of my disc to lodge it in place. We can escape using Byakko."

Don looked at him. Mortu felt chilled at the expression of finality in his eyes.

"You will."

Don took a step back and drew Byakko with one hand, transferring the sphere to the other.

"Don't!"

"Thank you, Mortu. For everything."

And Donatello unleashed Byakko once more, pushing Mortu away with all his strength.

Don knelt on the ship.

I'm sorry, everyone. I'm so sorry.

Please be safe. Take care of each other.

Goodbye.

Donatello activated the bomb.

-==OOO==-

From below, a red ball of light shot out all around the ship, expanding until it was about three-quarters the length of the ship in diameter. After a moment, the ship and any matter at the very edge of the circle began to disappear, pulled apart and undone by Donatello's digitization process.

As soon as the portion of the ship closest to the Heart was detached from the rest by that red light, it was no longer so hard to move.

The combined strength of Kiryoku, Inazuma, and Banrai blasted the ship's long protrusion sideways into the rocky ground, cutting a furrow with it until it was embedded in the planet to the side and away from the Heart. Leo, Raph, and Mikey pushed at it a few extra moments, just to be completely certain it wasn't going to swing back towards them and fall.

But as soon as they were sure the Heart was safe from the dying ship, Leo cut off the flow of power.

"Come on!" he yelled, looking up. The red field of energy was starting to collapse, eradicating all the matter it touched as it folded inward.

"My sons, you must hurry!" Splinter called. "Donatello is in grave danger!"

"You cannot pass through that!" Zayton called, running forward. "If you touch that red light, you will be unmade as well!"

"We won't touch it," Leo said. "We're going to surpass it."

Mikey and Raph looked up at him and nodded. They knew – of course they knew – that there was always a way to beat even the finest technology. Even Don's.

That some things are stronger than intellect and creativity.

Things that bind brothers.

Things that live without words deep in the soul.

Things that answer to need – and to love.

Splinter shared a blazing look with his three sons. "Go. Quickly."

Leo, Raph, and Mikey linked hands and closed their eyes.

The medallion platform that served to enhance their spiritual powers started to glow.

And three indistinct balls of light rose from where they had stood – one blue, one red, one orange.

-==OOO==-

On top of the ship, Don could feel some of his body tingling as the disintegration process started to reach him. Bits and pieces of his skin and his shell were flaking off and disappearing. His chest felt heavy and his lungs were starting to wheeze.

But I can't let go. I can't. If I stop now, there's still a chance what's left of the ship could fall on the Heart. And there's still a chance the Architect could find a way to reconstitute itself and regain control.

He locked his hands into claw shapes and bent over them, using his weight to pin his fingers in place.

I can't stop until there's absolutely nothing left.

The crawling red light drew near, speeding up as it had less mass to convert. Don watched it closing in on him like the sun rising.

I wish I could have heard the Song once more.

I wish...I could have said more to them. All of them.

I wish they knew what I'll never get to tell them now.

Maybe the Heart knows.

He opened his eyes to watch it come. To watch the end.

Please watch over my family, Master Yoshi. Please watch over them all.

The red glow was only a handful of yards away and moving with the speed of sound when three balls of light rose just beyond it.

The disintegration field collapsed inward onto Donatello.

And the three balls of light streaked forward to catch him.

-==OOO==-

Donatello's medallion platform, which had granted such power to the turtles, suddenly cracked and shattered.

Three turtle forms appeared from nowhere, standing together and holding hands with one another. But they only stood long enough for the last light of inner strength crawling across their skins to fade. Then all three dropped to their knees.

Leatherhead, Zayton, and Splinter raced forward. Mortu streaked through the air towards them from above.

Within the circle of hands, a fourth turtle lay, his eyes closed. He was covered with a lattice of open wounds cut clean by the disintegration bomb that had almost taken him with it – and many of those cuts ran dangerously deep and were bleeding profusely.

"My sons!" Splinter cried. "Are you all right?"

Leo blinked his eyes open and dropped the hands he held to get them around Donatello's shoulders.

"Donnie!"

Mikey and Raph crowded over their lost brother.

Donatello's eyes blinked open. He stared unseeing for several moments before he fixed his gaze on his brothers and his father. And on his other brothers.

"You...saved me." His voice was raspy and there was blood in his mouth.

"Call for a medical team at once!" Leatherhead ordered Mortu. "The Secrete should be on the way here. There's no telling how many internal injuries he has from proximity to that uncontrolled matter disintegration!"

Then he shoved his way to Donatello's side and began applying pressure to the most dangerous open wound that spilled blood like a waterfall.

"You can't die, Donnie!" Raph's own voice was low and choked with tears. "We just got you back!" He closed his hands on another gash in Don's leg that leaked alarmingly.

"I won't." Don looked around the circle once more. "I have...all of you to...protect me."

"You got it, bro." Mikey wiped at his beak. "We're here – so you gotta stay with us."

"I will. I promise."

It took but a few moments for the gentle hands to make it easier for Donatello to lie on the ground, to collect the mystical weapons that had been dropped in the turtles' haste to reach him. Byakko itself was unharmed; Zayton reverently lined it up with the others.

Leo turned, distracted for a moment by Kiryoku. When he looked back, he realized Don's eyes were on him.

"Don. Why'd...you do this? Why a sword like this?" It wasn't even among the first hundred questions that mattered, but it was the only one he could voice against Don's dim eyes and roaring blood.

Donatello coughed. "Because...it was always yours. I...just had to find it."

"But what is it?"

"It's...it's the strongest thing I know."

"Magic?"

"Gravity. I survived the Architect...by remembering how much I wanted...to be back in my orbit around you...around all of you. I knew...something that got me this far would...be enough to finish the job...if it was in your hands, Leo."

Leo's throat closed with a lump of tears and he could only grip his brother's shoulder wordlessly.

But Don's eyes wandered up to Leatherhead and to Mortu on one side.

"Please don't...be offended. I don't mean…"

"We know, my brother," Leatherhead said gently. "We know."

"Your love for your original family does not lessen what we have attained," Mortu added. "You know that Utrom children have many parents. So too do you have many family."

Don managed a nod. "I missed them...but I missed you, too. Mortu, I…"

"Please, allow me," Leatherhead said, voice soothing. Don's face eased slightly as Leatherhead took up the explanation without ever releasing his hold on the blood that still tried to flow from Don's broken body. "Donatello had been in constant contact with us while we worked from within the ship's computers. Though we were not corporeal, we were able to communicate with him regularly while he was linked with the Architect and also when he worked alone from his room. He...spoke often of you, Mortu. As well as his brothers and Master Splinter, of course." Leatherhead gave them a nod.

Don twitched a hand and Mortu dropped lower to touch it with a foreleg. "I...I was glad you didn't have to go through it...like they did. But...it wasn't…"

"I understand," Mortu said. "I would have gone through anything to be with the rest of you, but I think I was more able to help you from here." He paused. Then, "But I will confess that I have not been whole since you were lost to us, Donatello. Zayton and Leatherhead are my brothers, they know this. But you...you made us a family. You pulled us together. You gave me something I never thought I would have for myself."

Don's mouth curved in a faint smile. "And you...gave me back...what I lost."

"And what you have again, my son," Splinter said, taking Don's other hand.

Don's eyes started to flutter shut.

"Where are the medics?" Zayton shouted in a shrill, near-panic.

"Hold on, Donnie!" Raph yelled at his brother. "Don't you stop fightin' now!"

"Donnie!" Mikey cried.

"Hold on, Donatello!" Mortu gripped Don's hand tightly.

"Stay with us, please!" Leo held onto Don's shoulder as though he would never let go.

Leatherhead roared as his own emotions broke loose. "Donatello!"

"My son!"

Donatello could not keep his eyes open any longer, even though he wanted to with all his heart. He wanted to tell them that he wasn't going to die here without a fight. That he couldn't leave them now that he finally had them all back at his side. That he was sorry and he loved them and he would always be with them even if he and his body couldn't agree on the terms.

But the words trickled away from him.

The last thing Donatello heard before he was swallowed by darkness was the Song of the Heart welcoming him home.

-==OOO==-

End of Act 7

-==OOO==-