***
Raven was startled awake.
"Who? What? Where?"
"Phone."
Raven rubbed her eyes and looked around her room. Mike waved at her from the corner and pointed to her phone, which rang again. It was Leo’s idea for Mike to stay with her, and Don with Morgan, since they couldn’t very well keep the girls in the sewers with them. Leo and Raph spent a lot of their time looking for the Foot.
Raven picked up her phone. "Hello?"
Mike giggled at her tone, which was rather annoyed since she had just been woken up in the middle of the night.
"Hello, Raven."
Raven froze. "Indigo," she squeaked.
Mike was next to her in an instant.
"Ah, I’m glad you remember me. I’d hate to lose a good friend like you, Raven."
Raven gathered up all her courage. "You aren’t Indigo. What do you want?" she demanded.
On the other end of the line, Shredder smiled. "I wish to set up a meeting with our other friends. I know I can trust you to relay the message."
Raven nodded and looked at Mike, noting how concerned he looked. "Yes, I’ll tell them."
"Good, tell them that I’ll be waiting at our circle on the night of the new moon."
Raven stayed silent as Shredder hung up, listening to the dial tone for several moments before replacing the receiver.
Mike touched her shoulder, "What’d she say?"
Raven inhaled a sharp breath. "She wants to set up a meeting."
Mike nodded. "Yeah, we were waiting for this." He crossed his eyes. "Actually, we were expecting them to pass the information through April again." He shrugged. "Go back to bed, I’ll call Leo. Don’t worry, we know the routine."
Raven lay back down and watched as Mike dialed up the lair. She only heard half the conversation before she fell asleep again.
***
Shredder set down the phone and leaned back in the chair. Her plan was falling in place and going perfectly for once. She realized her mistake last time; she had rushed in too fast. This time she decided to wait, build up power before striking. She was confident now that none of them could stop her.
She held out her hand and a small glowing ball appeared in her palm. With this power, she felt invincible.
"Soon, it will all be over."
***
Indigo stood in her room. It was exactly as she remembered it. Her bed was neatly made with clean white sheets and her sky blue comforter. All her trinkets were lined up on her shelves. Even her altar had candles burning.
Something caught her eye. A Japanese style tapestry had taken the place of her chakra poster. She wandered over and reached out to touch it.
"Don’t."
She spun to look for the source of the voice. It was deep, full of hate and malice.
"Shredder," she called out.
He emerged from the shadows, as he had looked before ever encountering the turtles, but just as intimidating as ever.
"We finally meet," he sneered. "I've heard so much about you."
Indigo lifted her chin defiantly, unwilling to show this man any weakness. "Get out of my head."
Shredder stepped towards her. "You don’t get it, do you little girl? I'm in control here, not you!"
"You won’t win," Indigo screamed. "I won’t let you."
She launched forward with her fist.
Shredder sat straight up, the blanket falling off the cot and onto the floor. The dream was not a good sign. The girl was now trying to fight back.
***
"You sure you don’t want me to come along?" Casey whined as the turtles prepared to leave.
"Casey, this doesn’t concern you," Leo said, checking the straps of his belt.
"But I wanna bust some skulls! They get to go!" He pointed to Raven and Morgan, who were wearing dark clothes for the trip.
"We need them. They know the area," Don said.
"But..."
"Aw, just let him come, Leo," Raph argued.
"Or we’ll never hear the end of it!" Mike finished.
Leo covered his face with his hand. "When did this group become a democracy? Fine, Shredder probably won’t expect us to bring you, anyway."
Casey pulled down his hockey mask and swung his stick. "Oh yeah!"
***
Shredder stood before the mirror. New armor had been made to fit her new body. The design was similar to her old set, only smaller.
She checked the sword that was strapped to her belt and picked up the helmet.
"Enter."
On the other side of the door, Jay hesitated a second before opening the door. "We are ready."
Shredder nodded briefly and slipped the helmet over her head. Jay bowed deeply and left.
Shredder grinned at her reflection. "Finally, revenge is mine."
***
From their place in the back of Casey’s truck the turtles felt the truck jerk to a stop. Mike waited for the signal from Casey before tossing the tarp aside.
"This is it?" he asked. "Looks kinda plain to me."
Raph jumped from the truck bed. "So what’s so special about this place anyway?"
Morgan slammed the car door after Raven got out. "It’s a place of power," she told him. "The three of us have our circles here sometimes, when the weather’s good."
"Circles?" Don asked.
"Meetings," Raven clarified. "When we get together to do magick and stuff."
"A place of power, huh?" Leo looked around. "Magick is like ki, isn’t it?"
Raven nodded slowly. "Kinda. Ki and Chi are energies. Magick is more of a technique to harness it."
"No wonder she choose this battlefield."
Mike scratched his head. "So, if Shred-head knew about this place, does that mean he also knows everything Indigo knows? Like all her magick?"
All eyes turned to Mike as they let his words sink in.
"Great," Raph moaned. "Just great."
***