Edit by EL_Vader

"Casey? Casey, are you still there?" Donatello demands, not liking the dead silence on the other end of the line.

"Donnie, what happened?" Sarina inquires, looking up from her microscope.

The purple-masked turtle shakes his head, swiftly setting up the tracking system on their phones as he looks to his white-haired girlfriend.

"Casey's in trouble. He said something about the Necromancer," he mutters. "I've got to tell the others."

The cyborg ditches her current project and follows after him as he dashes into the living room, seeing his family scattered around the living room. Raphael and Annalise play video games together while Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Destiny play Monopoly nearby.

"Guys, distress call from Casey," Donnie calls. "Something about the Necromancer."

They stop their activities instantly, eyes going wide with worry and fear. Destiny gets to her feet, flapping her wings as her tail flicks.

"Where is he?" she demands.

"I'm tracking his phone. Coordinates should show up in-" Donnie's phone beeps and he smirks. "Now. I'll send them to your t-phones."

"I'll come with you, Des," Raph offers, getting up as he glances towards his orange-masked brother. "Yo Mikey, do me a favour and kick your girlfriend's butt at Smash Bros for me, okay?"

"You got it, bro!" Mikey says, launching upwards and settling next to Annalise in front of the TV.

"You wish," the blonde mutters, rolling her shoulders in anticipation.

Leo pouts a little as he gestures to the game board in front of him. "Aw, but I was winning!"

"I will play, Leonardo!" Sarina offers.

Raph and Destiny grab their weapons and head out of the lair, leaving their family behind as they head to find their friend.

----------

Zilla moves down the street, trying to find Casey. She can't just leave it like that. She was being difficult again, something she's fully aware of. The least she can do is apologize to him.

She stops dead in her tracks as she notices a dark shape circling in the sky. A hawk, she realizes, but not a normal one. Her eyes narrow and she races forwards, evading the streetlight beams easily as she heads for the rooftops.

She follows after the strange bird as it soars north, her eyes narrowed in determination. The bird swoops lower and lower towards the rooftops, his shadowy form moving swiftly through the nighttime sky.

She stops abruptly as the hawk alights on the antlers of a stag made of the same sort of shadow. A dreadful feeling overwhelms her when she sees two more creatures; a lioness and a panther. What's weirder, she swears that she can hear whispers coming from the group of animals.

The stag shakes his coat and snorts in annoyance. The hawk flaps his wings a few times and adjusts his stance on the deer's antlers.

The panther's bright gaze snaps in her direction quite suddenly, startling the girl. He snarls as the other animals narrow their eyes.

"Look at that, you were right," the deep rumbling voice of the black cat comments towards the hawk.

The bird doesn't respond, simply ruffling his feathers in annoyance. Zilla doesn't move from the spot, undeterred by the thought of understanding what the beasts are saying. They're shadows, like her, it makes sense.

Beast Mode roars, ordering the other animals to attack and instantly putting the shadow girl on edge. The hawk surges forwards first, but Zilla has another idea. She deftly dodges the bird's attack, making him fly right into a chimney stack. He squawks in annoyance as she zooms away, still on guard for the other attacks.

The stag and panther double up racing at her from two different directions. Knowing that they are like her in some ways, she has no doubt that they will be able to hurt her should they land a hit. She isn't about to let them get her.

Just as they get near enough, she zooms backwards. The animals collide, getting completely tangled up. Angered noises sound from both of them as Zilla smirks in triumph. There's a low growl from directly behind her and she spins around, coming face to muzzle with Beast Mode. The lioness lets out another detestable noise, fur still prickled and waving in the cold wind.

The lioness stiffens as Zilla readies herself to use her shadow powers, but one close look tell the seventeen-year-old that the big cat's reaction was not to her. Beast Mode's eyes are on the sky behind her, taking on an annoyed countenance.

"We must go," she orders to her disgruntled companions. "We fulfilled Master Necromancer's orders. We will deal with her another day."

"What orders?" Zilla demands, unsure of what they mean.

All four animals bolt from the scene before she can blink, making the shadow girl turn around so that she can see what Beast Mode had been staring at. Raphael and Destiny are coming her way, the wolf-raven flying through the air while the turtle trails from below. Zilla instantly melts into a puddle, watching as they rush past her hiding spot with no regard for her presence.

"He's close. Des, can you smell him?" Raph calls up to the brunette.

"Oh yeah, I've got something. He should be in the next alleyway," she returns, her brunette curls whipping in the cold wind as she flies.

Zilla returns to her normal form as they disappear off the edge of the building, swiftly following after them. She slides down the side of the building, carefully peering out at the two mutants.

"Casey!" Destiny's voice reaches the shadow girl's ears, sick with worry. "What in the..."

"What the shell happened?" Raph seconds, the sound of trash bags rustling breaking the silence of the night.

Zilla peers out, her stomach flipping at the sight. Casey is completely unconscious, his face bruised and beaten. Gashes line his jaw, forehead, and cheek, the limpness of his body making Zilla wonder whether he's still alive. The next second, a flare of guilt goes up in her entire body. This must've been what the beasts were talking about.

"Casey..." Destiny whispers, kneeling next to him and checking for a pulse. She breathes out as her wild green eyes fall shut. "He's alive, I've got a pulse."

"Okay, help me out here. He must've bashed his head," Raph says.

The two mutants work together, the red-masked turtle carefully supporting Casey's body in his arms as Destiny makes sure his neck is supported. The pair turns and heads for the nearest manhole cover, both expressions sick with worry and confusion.

As Raph disappears into the sewers with Casey in his strong grip, Destiny stops at the mouth of the hole. Her ears perk, her nose twitching as she slowly turns around. Her wild green eyes scan the entire area for spectators, the dark scars and the serious expression on her face making her look terrifying and intimidating all at once.

Zilla waits until the wolf mutant turns and disappears down the tunnel before she follows, unable to leave knowing that Casey is hurt. Besides, what if he's gotten scratched by the shadow beasts? She'll need to be there to heal him.

More than anything, the absolute feeling of guilt weighs her down the whole way back to the lair.

----------

"Well, the good news is none of the wounds are shaded," Donatello reports.

The others give him strange looks, a soft groan leaving Casey's lips as Sarina fixes the gashes on his face. The purple-masked turtle rolls his eyes as he sighs.

"Shaded. It's the term I came up with for when a shadow beast wounds someone, therefore spreading their strange infection. That wound is shaded. Get it?"

"Got it, D," Michelangelo says, his voice far too happy for the circumstances.

"So we don't need to find Shadow. That's good," Leonardo comments. "Right?"

"I think we're overstaying our welcome on favours with her anyways," Sarina mentions. "Besides, she only ever wants to help if it's Casey begging her."

"And if Casey needed the help? Then what?" Destiny suggests.

"She'd probably be here in seconds."

Master Splinter enters from the dojo with Raphael and Annalise at his side, the blonde carrying extra blankets. The teens hurry over, allowing Donnie and Sarina to support Casey's beaten body better.

"Do you have any theories for what attacked him?" Splinter inquires, his ears flattened as his russet eyes flicker over his family.

"No, we're stumped," Leo answers. "From what Raph and Des described, he fell off a building."

"Except I smelled shadow beasts," Destiny points out, her tone low and her eyes stuck on Casey.

"They have a smell?" Annalise asks, sounding intrigued and confounded all at once.

Destiny shrugs. "Shadow doesn't. The beasts do. I think it has something to do with the facts that, one, Shadow doesn't have the same sort of buildup as them, and two, because they used to be taxidermy animals. They smell cold, almost like corpses, but only to the trained sniffer. Casey's little girlfriend just smells like the winter air at best." She points to her own nose to add to the statement.

"So Beast Mode was hunting Casey down?" Mikey squeaks. "Dude..."

"Yes, but she wasn't alone. There were three other scents I could catch...another cat of sorts, possibly a woodland creature, and a bird, from what I can guess." The wolf-raven smirks a little. "Hey, it's cool to be the one with some answers for once!"

Leo smirks a little at that, but it quickly falls as he hooks his thumbs around his belt. "Someone needs to call April and tell her that Casey's hurt."

"Uh...they sorta broke up," Annalise says timidly.

"But she still cares about him," the blue-masked turtle retorts.

"I'll do it," Donnie offers as he gets to his feet, pulling out his phone. "Uh...let's just not tell Casey that we called her, okay?"

Everyone nods in response. The purple-masked turtle wanders towards the kitchen as he punches in the redhead's number. Sarina adjusts a few of the ice packs on various parts of Casey's body before straightening up, nodding curtly to the others before turning and walking away.

"My children, perhaps meditation will bring you peace in this troubled time?" Splinter suggests, sweeping his hand towards the dojo. "Casey will be fine to just rest in here for the time being."

"Hai Sensei," Leo and Destiny murmur.

"Hai," Raph and Mikey echo.

"I'm gonna do homework," Annalise says with a weak smile. "Gotta keep the grades up!"

They disperse, leaving Casey to rest. Zilla materializes from right next to the bench, crossing her arms over her chest as she watches the mutant teenagers disappear into the dojo. As soon as they're gone, she turns to Casey's sleeping form. His breaths are even, although that's the only thing that moves consistently. His eyelids don't flutter, his fingers don't twitch, and it's all because the beasts drained his energy so much.

She reaches out, trying to brush his shaggy black bangs from his eyes. Her fingers pass right through them, making her retract her hand and place it in a fist against her chest, her heart clenching again.

"I'm so tired of all this..." she whispers, unable to take her eyes off of him. "It's all my fault that they went after you, Hockey Puck. All my fault..." She trails off as she sinks lower to the ground, her face at his level as she watches him from the side. "I didn't mean what I said, about you always being an idiot. You have idiotic moments, sure, but that's not all you are. You're so much more."

She glances around, listening to the steady sounds of life inside the lair. She takes a long breath, drawing herself up to full height. With one last longing look towards her dark-haired friend, she dashes from the lair.