Author's Note: Again, this did not take me nearly as long. Thank you for your patience. I have been looking for a beta to help me with this story. If anyone is interested, PM me. :)

~Chapter Six: A Ninja's Logic~

Leonardo and Michelangelo were perplexed. They had never seen Donatello break down like this before. Although, they'd never started playing a magical game where your consequences came to life either. They never fully understood their brother's need to understand the world, and how much it shook him when things didn't make sense.

Leonardo thought, why isn't this effecting me as badly? Well, one thing was for sure. Leonardo did not need the world to be orderly for him to be able to function within it. Two, in a way, everything did make sense. It simply required an explanation that defied logic. Magic. Some sort of mysterious magic brought all these things to life. That's how he coped with everything. Also, now Leonardo had a mission: to find Master Splinter, rescue him if possible, finish the game, and then throw the game into a deep dark pit—somewhere it would never be found again. But he needed all his brothers to be able to do these things. Which meant he had to somehow help Donatello overcome whatever was eating at him.

He knelt down next to his brother, and said, "C'mon Donnie. It's okay. It doesn't have to make sense, we just have to hang on through it to make it all go away."

Donatello scrubbed at his eyes with his fists, and took a deep breath. "I-I know L-Leo. I just—" he was hiccupping too much to speak very coherently. He took another deep breath, and gulped a couple of times. "It's just that Master Splinter was just kidnapped, and he was the one that made it okay for it to not make sense." He blew out a slow steady stream of air, and then hiccupped once. "I'm not very good at working with things that don't make sense."

Michelangelo stepped in, "That's why you've got us, bro."

Leonardo nodded, "That's right. Michelangelo never makes sense!"

"Hey!" The orange-banded brother protested.

Donatello grinned shakily for a moment, and then frowned. "But I just don't understand anything. How did you know that rolling the dice again would help?"

Leonardo shrugged. "I didn't."

"Then why did you do it?"

"It felt right."

Donatello gave the blue-banded leader a strange look. "It felt right?"

Nodding, Leonardo explained, "Yeah, Don. There wasn't anything else we could do. We were trapped and about to be killed. The only thing that there was left to do was to roll the dice. I figured that it was better to try something than nothing. So I rolled."

Donatello stared at his brother. Okay, he thought, that makes sense. Slowly, he could feel the clamp of panic start to let up. It made sense, what Leo did, and that's what he needed: for things to make sense. He looked at Michelangelo, wishing that he could just accept everything as readily as his orange-banded brother did. But he couldn't. His brain didn't function that way, it seemed. Michelangelo rolled with the punches. Donatello had to analyze the punch, assess its trajectory, predict the force, estimate the damage, and determine the following course of action.

The fact was, all of this—the game and it's seriously scary consequences—all operated on one assumption: that magic was real. And Donatello didn't believe in magic. There was nothing he had seen in the real world up to this point in his life that would suggest that magic was real. Whatever was happening had to be functioning on some law of physics that the young turtle didn't know about yet, and Donatello felt a sudden determination to figure out what it was.

Leonardo, sensing the calm in Donatello, stood up and began to pace, voicing his thoughts out loud. "Master Splinter has just been kidnapped by cannibals. We need to get him back. But I don't know if we can do that without Raph." He looked at his brother's silent form on the hardened lava rock at his feet. He shook his head. "If we are ever going to wake up Raph, we have to roll again." He looked pointedly at Michelangelo. It was his turn.

Looking at the evil game board on the floor next to Donatello's feet, Michelangelo gulped and said, "Ho boy." Not for the first time he wished that he hadn't been so excited to play the game. He knelt next to the game and picked up the old yellow dice. They were heavy in his hands. He looked at Raphael and swallowed a few times; his throat had gone dry.

Steeling up his resolve, he drew a breath, shook the dice, and let them fall from his hands. They bounced and clattered around on the wooden game board, and then came to rest. A three and a five. The three young turtles unconsciously leaned in toward the game with bated breath.

The yellow words swirled around the orb, and then stilled, floating in the ethereal abyss of blackness behind them.

Michelangelo read, "Water water everywhere, and far too much to drink."

Donatello jumped to his feet. "I don't like the sound of that."

"Neither do I!" Both Leonardo and Michelangelo yelled.

A roaring sound began to fill the lava-encrusted lair. Without even needing to speak to one another, the turtles sprang into action. Michelangelo grabbed up his brother, tossing an arm over his shoulder. Leonardo slammed the lid shut on the game and tucked it under his arm like a football jockey. Donatello's eyes were scanning the area, and he saw something on the other side of the lair where Master Splinter had disappeared: a ladder made up of a set of rungs built into the cement which led to a tunnel above.

"Follow me!" he cried.

The three of them, with the fourth in tow, hastened their way to the stairs, the roaring growing louder and louder. It sounded to Michelangelo as though there was a whole army of monsters behind them, really scary ones with large mouths full of sharp pointy teeth. His feet flew underneath him, racing after Donatello, and he could hardly feel the weight of Raphael on his shoulder.

Donatello knew what was coming; as they headed toward the ladder leading upward, it became clear that they didn't have enough time for all four of them to climb to safety. The roaring grew ever louder. Finally in an explosion of white spray at the other end of the lair, the beast finally showed itself: a rushing river of white water. Donatello was on the ladder already heading upward, and Michelangelo had one hand on the nearest rung by the time the water overtook them. Leonardo in a flash grabbed Michelangelo's torso, and Michelangelo in turn hooked an elbow around the rung he had grabbed, and squeezed Raphael against his chest. The water hit the three of them with the power of a freight train. It nearly ripped Michelangelo clean away from his arm, and it pummeled Leonardo into half-consciousness. Raphael still remained in Michelangelo's grip, but just barely. Donatello fared better, only half being in the onslaught, although he nearly lost his grip on the rungs. He looked down to see that all three of his brothers were clinging for dear life on the ladder, and that they were all submerged beneath the water. He felt the water pelting at him, the invisible fingers intent on ripping him away from the ladder. He made a desperate attempt to move down a rung closer to his brothers so that he might pull them up, but as soon as he had relinquished his footing on the ladder, the swift water pulled his entire torso away from the ladder, and he had to hold on for dear life with outstretched arms. He coughed and spluttered as the water began pouring itself down his throat. There wasn't much he could do.

Michelangelo had never been much good at power-lifting. He'd always left that to Raphael. Besides, it had been much easier just to be faster. But now he found himself wishing that he had lifted a few more weights. Raphael was slipping from his one-arm grasp, and his other arm was burning with the exertion of supporting not just himself but two other turtles. He couldn't take a breath, and his muscles were crying for oxygen, despite the fact that he was a turtle and could hold his breath for quite a bit of time. The added strain drained his oxygen reserve. He didn't know how much longer he could last. But he knew that he just couldn't let go.

Leonardo still gripped Michelangelo's waist, and felt as though he'd been crushed by a brick wall. He knew that it was only Michelangelo's grip on the ladder that was keeping him from being swept away into the raging river that had suddenly appeared. He'd stuck the gameboard between him and his brother to whom he so desperately clung. He was beginning to feel frantic for air, and he knew that Michelangelo had to be feeling the exact same way.

Slowly, Leonardo pulled from his core all of the strength that he possessed, and attempted to move. He shifted the game board so that he could squeeze it beneath his arm, and he began to slowly drag himself up the torso of his brother. After an eternity, his hand came into contact with the rung of the ladder upon which Michelangelo had attached himself.

By this time, Donatello and finally pulled his feet beneath him again, and he'd moved down a few rungs so that just his head was above water. He'd laced his feet into the space between the wall and the rungs of the ladder, and he knew that the water wouldn't be able to pull him away from the wall once he'd let go with his hands. He took a gulp of air, and then dove beneath the water, and he latched onto Leonardo's wrist, just as his blue-banded brother reached the ladder. He swiftly helped Leonardo up. As Leonardo's head broke the water, the air-deprived turtle gasped, and took several deep breaths as he climbed the ladder to make room for the remainder of his brothers.

Donatello grabbed Raphael next, the red-banded turtle still unconscious. Tugging on Raphael's wrist, Donatello pulled the limp turtle out of Michelangelo's arms, and handed him up to Leonardo, who was waiting above. Quickly, Donatello followed Raphael, to allow Michelangelo to come up as well. Freed from Raphael, Michelangelo quickly and desperately pulled himself above the level of the water. He gasped and took in several deep breaths of air before he felt comfortable enough to continue moving up the ladder. Leonardo had already made it into the upper tunnel—which was closer to the streets of the city, and therefore was mucked up with more garbage and filth than the tunnels below it; it stank. The blue-banded leader had laid Raphael on a small cement pathway off to the side, so as not to completely immerse the poor turtle in the refuse of the sewer tunnel. Donatello hauled himself into the tunnel, and then leaned over, grasped Michelangelo's wrist, and pulled the turtle up. The two of them fell into a heap next to Leonardo and Raphael, and they all huffed and puffed, catching their breaths for a moment.

After Michelangelo's head stopped spinning, and his muscles burned just a little bit less, he said, "I'm thirsty."

Leonardo and Donatello looked at him. "You're thirsty?"

Nodding, Michelangelo said, "Yeah, that's right. I don't think we had enough water back there, do you?"

Leonardo gave his brother a half-grin. "Don't jinx us." He warned.

Groaning, Donatello said, "I don't think I will be thirsty again for at least another decade." His belly felt uncomfortably full of water.

"Naw, dudes," Michelangelo insisted, "That was only a little bit of water."

Shaking his head—feeling grateful for Michelangelo's humor to lighten the mood—Donatello turned to Raphael. The red-banded brother looked about as waterlogged as the rest of them. He leaned down and put his ear on his brother's plastron. He could hear the beat of his heart; it seemed to have gotten stronger. He recalled how Sensei hadn't been able to hear the beat unless everything was absolutely silent. Also, there was a visible rise and fall of his chest. Could that mean that Raphael was merely sleeping, and not in a drugged-out unconscious state now?

Turning to Leonardo, the purple-banded turtle asked, "You think he'll wake up on his own, or do we have to snap him out of it?"

Leonardo thought for a moment. "Maybe we have to snap him out of it…"

"You'd think the water woulda woken him up." That was Michelangelo, now sitting up, his arms wrapped around his knees.

"Yeah, you'd think…" Donatello agreed. He nudged Raphael. "Hey Raph." He tried.

No response.

"Yo, Raphie-boy!" Michelangelo shouted, leaning over and poking the unconscious turtle's muscle-bound shoulder.

Still nothing.

Standing up, Michelangelo positioned himself at Raphael's feet, his hands on his hips. He began kicking Raphael's feet, saying, "We have had to drag your sorry butt—" kick, "from here to China and back—" kick, "And we don't want—" kick, "to drag you—" double kick, "anymore!"

A groan came from the red-banded turtle.

"Oh good," Donatello breathed in relief, "He's waking up."

"That's right," Michelangelo kicked again, "No more freeloading!"

Raphael's eyes opened a thin crack, and he frowned, rolled over, and muttered something underneath his breath.

Leonardo leaned forward, "What was that, Raph?"

Raphael didn't respond.

"Oh no ya don't!" Michelangelo began clambering up beside his brother. "No falling back asleep." He latched onto Raphael's wrists, and pulled up.

The limp turtle grunted a moment—half of his body on the floor, and the other half being pulled up by his arms—and peeled open one eye. "Lemmealone…" the slurring voice said irritably

Leonardo stepped in mercifully, "Seriously Mikey, just let him wake up for a bit."

The orange banded one shrugged, and leaned his brother gently back down onto the cold concrete of the sewer footpath. He sat down next to the semi-conscious and irritated Raphael, and watched him. Raphael loved his sleep; it was hard to wake him up in the morning. He'd gotten good at tricking people into leaving him alone so that he could snatch a few more lazy moments in the bed. Well, not on Mikey's watch! Not when he knew that the longer they delayed the worse off Master Splinter might be.

Although Michelangelo's tactics were rather rough, it turned out that Raphael probably wouldn't have woken up without them. Raphael's head swirled, and he found it difficult to register what anyone was saying. Their voices echoed around in his head, and when he opened up an eye, or both, his vision was blurry.

Although the difference between naturally having a tough time waking up and coming out of a drug-induced unconsciousness was slight, Donatello could tell that Raphael was having more of a struggle than he normally would have. For one, Raphael opened his eyes more than he normally would have—the turtle hardly opened his eyes for anything. He would usually just bat his assailant away with an arm, roll over, and pretend to sleep again. This time, Raphael's eyes fluttered open every few minutes. The other three turned cheerleaders for him.

"That's it Raph, now just keep 'em open," Michelangelo said.

"Just start wiggling your fingers and toes, that'll help." Leonardo advised.

"Deep breaths, get the oxygen moving in your system again." Donatello added.

"No, don't close your eyes again!"

"He can't help it Mikey. I mean, he was just drugged for crying out loud."

"Great Don. Just go and enable him why don't you."

This continued for a good fifteen minutes or so, but eventually Raphael was able to sit up, see straight, hear straight, and talk straight.

"What happened?"

The other three looked at each other, and then began explaining all at once.

"Cannibals shot you—"

"There was lava everywhere—"

"They just dragged Master Splinter off somewhere—"

"And you've seriously got to lose some weight bro—"

"I think Mikey rolled a 'Niagra Falls' consequence—"

"We have to go rescue him—"

"Then Donatello freaked out—"

"Okay, okay!" Raphael said after the deluge of explanations, covering his ears with his hands. "One at a time!"

Michelangelo and Donatello looked at Leonardo.

Leonardo paused for a moment, and then began with, "Your consequence was a tribe of cannibals. They shot you with a poisoned dart. It made you sleep until just now."

"Don't forget the lava," Michelangelo poked Leonardo's arm.

Leonardo moved his arm away from his brother, "I was getting to that, Mikey!" Turning back to Raphael, he said, "We came back to the lair, got our weapons. Donatello rolled and got lava. It destroyed the lair." He paused, feeling uncertain about how to continue. "They—the cannibals—they got Master Splinter."

"What?!" Raphael bolted upright, on his feet in a split second. He immediately regretted it. His head whirled around and suddenly the floor went vertical, and he toppled over himself.

"Easy Raph," Donatello agreed with his arms crossed. "You really should be dead right now. Give yourself a few minutes to shake it off."

"I should have died?" Raphael asked incredulously.

"Yeah," Donatello explained, "The poison on the dart slowed your breathing and nearly stopped your heart. Then we moved you, and jostled you, and put your body under more strain. That should have killed you. Then when I rolled, the game made lava appear, and you and Mikey were maybe seven feet directly above it. That should have killed you both! Then Mikey's roll gave us the Amazon River traveling at about forty miles an hour. We had to hold our breath. You were unconscious, and incapable of holding your breath. I don't know how it was that you didn't drown."

A pregnant pause settled over the group. Raphael was flabbergasted—he couldn't believe how much he had missed. Leonardo pondered, quietly looking at his hands.

Michelangelo was looking at Donatello. "You're not going to freak out again, are you?"

Rolling his eyes, Donatello said, "No, Mikey."

"You know, it's probably because the game does not want us to die." Leonardo surmised. "It comes extremely close to killing us, but we have to be able to finish the game so…"

Nodding, Donatello said, 'Well if that's true then Master Splinter probably will be okay. If the game doesn't kill anybody, then he'll be fine."

Visible relief rushed through the four brothers.

Michelangelo spoke up, "Yeah, but he would be okay anyway. It's Master Splinter we're talking about here."

The other three nodded in complete agreement. Nothing could hurt Master Splinter. He was just invincible.

Raphael was on his feet, and although he still felt a little wobbly, he also felt very antsy to get going. His hands were on his sais and he began to walk.

In good humor, Michelangelo said, "I think Raph needs a few more minutes before he's ready to go."

Raphael turned to him with a frown. "Now. Let's go now. I ain't waitin'. Let's go."

Laughing, Leonardo slapped Raphael on the back. "Okay, Raph, okay."

They weren't exactly sure where to look. At first they just began walking. After a few moments, Raphael asked Leonardo, "Uh, Leo, where exactly are we headed?"

"After Master Splinter, hopefully." Came the answer.

"Yeah, but where is that?" Michelangelo asked.

Leonardo kept walking but began to explain, "Well, after your roll brought out the giant monster snakes, they all decided to stay in that junction. I figured that maybe the cannibal's camp would be right where Raphael rolled."

Donatello halted in his tracks. "But that doesn't make any sense, Leo. It was just a tunnel. Where exactly do you think they'd set up camp? Besides, it's not exactly like they stayed there, is it? Who's to say that they didn't find something better while they chased us?"

Leonardo stopped, and turned to look at his suddenly very argumentative brother. "At least it gives us a starting point. What would you do? Search blindly? It's not like we can retrace our steps. I mean, we'd have to start back at the lair, and right now it's under a river."

Donatello crossed his arms, and said, "I know that, Leo. But if we go to the tunnel, and find nothing there, then what? Or if we get ambushed on our way to the tunnel?"

"Well, we can think of all the bad things that might possibly happen, or we can do something." Leonardo said, "I personally would rather do something." With that, he continued forward, intent on his goal.

Donatello turned to look at his other two brothers. They'd been silently observing the exchange. Michelangelo shrugged and said, "I'm with Leo on this one, bro."

Raphael nodded, "Me too."

The both of them moved to catch up with Leonardo.

"But it doesn't make sense…" Donatello muttered, as he fell in behind. He was frowning.