"Sarina, it's not too late to—" Donatello begins.

"I'm going in, Donatello," Sarina says as she settles onto the empty lab table that's been placed by the teleporter. "I will be okay, so please don't waste time worrying."

"Oh, he should worry. This plan is inconceivably stupid," Circa taunts. "It's a waste. Hardly any planning, rushing into it all, and it will most likely fail in the end. What a waste."

Donatello's expression mirrors the look of a crumpled dollar bill in a sewer drain and Sarina reaches up to brush his cheek, making him exhale. His hand overlaps hers, thumb dragging against the circuit-patterned skin of her knuckles.

Near them, lingering by the teleporter with tension dragging their movements, Destiny untangles the needed cords while Leonardo and Raphael observe Annalise via Raphael's t-phone. Leonardo doesn't watch for more than a few seconds at a time. Raphael can't seem to look away.

"Destiny?" Sarina calls. When she looks up, the cyborg smiles expectantly. "Are the cords untangled?"

"Yeah, hold on," Destiny says.

She ruffles her wings a little as she loops the cords around her hand and starts back towards the table. She holds them out to Sarina and Donatello, ears pressed flat to her hair, and as soon as they're out of her palm, she turns and starts out of the lab. Diaval walks in as she goes out and while he stops and almost says something, she doesn't.

Donatello purses his lips and readies his first aid kit. He locates a specialized needle that he and Sarina made only a few months ago, one that she uses often when needing to stay awake. The needle goes into her vein like an I.V. would, then the needle plugs in to any kind of battery needed through a compatible cord, and the subsequent energy keeps her going. It's the closest thing they have to a real I.V. drip.

As Diaval wanders over to the lab table, Raphael and Leonardo take their leave. As per Sarina's request, there are no heartfelt goodbyes. There's no need for such things when she is confident in her ability to return home.

"Diaval," she says, making the man perk up a little. "Do you mind helping me?"

"Mhm," Diaval says, shaking his head.

She presses her finger to the base of her hairline, reopening the USB port, then uses her left hand to hold her pure white hair out of the way. While Donatello works on her right arm, Diaval takes the other cord and plugs it into her head as carefully as he can.

Donatello stops working on the battery plug to rest his hand over Sarina's. "Sarina, I—"

"You don't like this plan and you still do not want me to go through with it," she states, earning a discouraged frown. She sighs and squeezes his hand. "I have to, Donatello. That's final."

He shuts his eyes, tears building at the edges, and Diaval looks up from his work. He frowns a little, nudges Sarina, and whispers, "Hug 'im."

She doesn't have to be told twice. She reaches up and wraps Donatello in a tight hug and he returns it without hesitation. He presses his cheek against her hair and focuses in on her warmth, her scent, and the feeling of her steady breathing. Diaval looks away, cupping one hand around his eyes.

"You know what? We're practically a tricycle already with all the third wheeling I'm doing."

Sarina pulls away, suppressing an eye-roll, and Donatello leans down to steal a kiss. With that done, Diaval uncovers his eyes and turns back around. Donatello clears his throat and meets the taller boy's eyes.

"So..." He coughs a little, sucking in a short breath. "You'll monitor her. If anything goes wrong, you come and get us."

Diaval nods. "Mhm."

Donatello leaves the lab without so much as a nod, closing the door behind him. Sarina finds the end of the cord and gazes at it for a second. Her eyes flash.

"I just don't understand the determination, honestly," Circa comments as the beginnings of a headache wind their way back into Sarina's head. "Annalise is practically a stranger to you."

"But to Mikey, she means the world," Sarina whispers. She looks up and she can almost imagine Circa hovering before her. She can see the glittering black eyes, the metallic body of many colours, the noseless face and the mocking smile. "But, even if she didn't, I would do everything in my power to rescue her because someone out there does care. That is enough."

"You are so intelligent and yet you're such a fool."

Sarina's lip quirks at the edge. "We'll see about that." She looks up at Diaval, his eyes just a little wider than normal and his jaw clenched. "I'm sorry...she likes talking to me."

Diaval nods. "Can...read her desire through you," he admits, glancing at his feet. "Sometimes hear echoes."

"Good. You will know for sure when she's gone."

"Mhm."

"Alright, let's finish this."

She reaches up to the teleporter and plugs in the other end of the cord. Just as she does so, the door to the lab flies open and Michelangelo appears, his eyes slightly red. Sarina manages to get a brief look at him before she shudders and collapses onto the table, Diaval managing to catch her head before it makes an impact.

"Sarina!" Michelangelo cries, rushing to her side. She keeps her eyes closed, hands clenching into tight fists. "No! I thought you were gonna do something else!"

Her mind gets hazier and hazier and her entire body feels overrun with static. When she manages to open her eyes again, all she sees are two messes of colour—orange, green, brown, white, and red.

"I will get her back, Mikey," she whispers. "For you..."

"Sari...I...I didn't..." He sniffles as her eyelids droop. "I'm sorry. I don't want to lose you. I don't want you to be gone."

Her vision goes dark and her eyes dim. Michelangelo stares for a second, shaking, then lets out a wail as he brings her into a limp, desperate hug. She's unresponsive and he'd be lying if he said that he didn't feel any guilt.

----------

Annalise is going insane.

She's been stressed before. High school is full of opportunities to feel it, but this is on a whole new level. This level of perpetual terror is ruining her, sucking away her sanity minute by minute, second by second. She can't rest. She can't find any time to breathe. Her stomach is tied in knots and every muscle stays tense.

"You can't run! Why don't you understand that?!" her doppelgänger snaps, eyes red and her voice warped. "I will find you no matter where you run! You will be mine forever, forever and ever and ever and ever..."

She's numb. The words and the taunts and the laughter hit her over and over again and now, she's given up. She doesn't have it in her to keep running away, hoping to find her way out of YouTube when all that greets her are duplicates and blue walls of coding blocking her path.

This is it, she thinks. This is how I die.

YouTube Annalise stops talking as a high-pitched buzzing fills the room, making her shriek and clap her hands over her ears. The lights in the room dim and light up in rapid sequences and while it's shocking, Annalise can't get herself to move. She stares and waits for whatever Circa is throwing at her next.

A spiral of blue light appears, a portal of some sort, and in another flash of light, a familiar figure appears. Some of the fog encasing Annalise's mind dissipates.

Sarina's body is transparent and ghostly, her hair floating around her face as if suspended in water, and her eyes are pits of blue light. She wears no clothes, the barest form of herself stood before them, and she shows no sign of shame. She stares at everything with a deadpan, stoic expression.

Circa's body jolts as a large breath escapes her, her pure black eyes regaining its spark of light as her hair flares to life. Her smile disappears as she lifts back into the air, eyes wide.

"Impossible," she mutters, looking to Sarina. "There was no way—"

Sarina raises her hand and a blast of light explodes from her palm. A curling rope of blue and silver coding spins out from the light and surround Circa's body, making her tumble to the floor like a tied hog at a rodeo.

"For once in your life, just shut up," Sarina states. Her voice echoes a bit. Both Annalises stare at the cyborg in complete shock as her glowing eyes land on them. "You," she continues, her harsh glare focusing on the fake as her hand flies out at her. "Get out."

Another blast of light. The duplicate screams before disappearing in a shower of blue coding. The real Annalise stumbles into her desk, knees knocking, a second away from collapse.

"Unhand me!" Circa demands. "This won't work! It will never work! Nothing can ever truly be deleted from cyberspace!"

Sarina doesn't even blink. She shakes her head and whirls around, holding out a pale hand to Annalise, and her face softens just a little.

"Hurry, we do not have much time," she urges.

"H-How? I...I don't—" Annalise stammers.

"The Sarina standing here is just a part of me, an inner part, and my physical half is waiting outside," she explains. "That is a story for another time. Come."

Annalise grips Sarina's hand, surprisingly solid and cool to the touch, and holds on as tight as she can. Sarina's eyes glow even brighter as Circa starts to thrash against her bindings, screaming and howling. Sarina keeps staring ahead.

"It won't work! It won't!" Circa shrieks, but the fear inching its way onto her face is unmistakable.

"Apologies, Circa Cybernet, but your time has come," Sarina says. She aims both her hands at the computer within the fake room.

"NO! NO!"

Sarina blasts the wall, shaking the ground, and Annalise holds on tighter. The broken section of wall falls apart into a gaping black hole of swirling coding. Everything near it gets sucked into the gaping maw as the wind starts to pick up. Circa screams and thrashes about, letting out streams of binary-coded cusses that only Sarina could begin to understand.

"What's happening?!" Annalise screams over the roaring wind.

"Hold on!" Sarina calls.

She wraps her arm around Annalise and soars upwards, right through the ceiling. Annalise doesn't have time to shield herself before they've already passed through it, sailing away from the room.

When Sarina turns them around, before them sits a 3D cube containing Annalise's fake room. It collapses in on itself, strips of coding breaking off and swirling away into nothing. Annalise stares at it, mouth hanging open, and Sarina watches with slight sorrow in her eyes.

"THIS ISN'T OVER! I SWEAR, I'LL COME BACK AND FIND YOU!" Circa howls, her accented voice fluctuating and breaking. "SARINA!"

"We will see what you can do when we meet again," Sarina murmurs.

As the room spirals away into the black hole and Circa's screams start to fade, Annalise whispers out a final, "Goodbye, Rainbow."

Sarina turns away and flexes her fingers before reaching out again, palm glowing. "Next on the agenda—"

"W-W-Wait, you're not seriously going to blow another hole in cyberspace, right?!" Annalise asks.

The faintest ghost of a smile graces her features. "No, that would be silly. This is to send you home."

"M-Me? What about you?"

"I will be right behind you."

The burst of light reopens a portal in front of them and Annalise stares at it, wondering just what she's going to see once she goes inside. Sarina hoists Annalise into her arms and flashes a brief smile.

"Hang on," she says.

"Wha-AHHHH!" Annalise shrieks as Sarina throws her into the portal, sending her tumbling head over heels into the swirling chasm.

The portal swallows her and slides shut, leaving Sarina floating in the blackness of what used to be Annalise's YouTube channel. She takes a deep breath, rolling her shoulders.

"Now, it's my turn," she murmurs.