Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Fan Fiction ❯ Bad Places II: Rebirth ❯ Chapter 8

Part 8

His eyes burned. Leonardo held one hand over them as if they might melt in the hot light. He heard Shredder's footsteps coming closer and backed away, putting his other hand on the wall to steady himself. The darkness of the elevator shaft could have been miles away for all the good it did him. The light slipped through his fingers and burned like acid.

But even as the pain fogged his senses, it cleared his mind of the simultaneous hate and joy he'd felt since arriving at the tower. Animalistic blood lust vanished and left him empty inside; loss took its place. His brothers were dead. His blindness had killed them. The blood on him, no longer scalding hot, stung like ice. This wasn't what he'd wanted. This wasn't supposed to happen. Shredder--

His body reacted before his mind, recognizing the powerful ki invading his own and throwing himself to the right. The sword stroke missed his throat but slashed deep into his left shoulder, cutting down his arm. He cried out and stumbled away again, one hand clamped over the wound and blood welling over his palm. He heard Shredder's laughter behind him and kept moving, blindly backing away until he backed into a wall. After a moment he realized that he'd gone the wrong way, moving further into the light.

Lost and disoriented, he had no choice. He opened his eyes and through the hellstorm of light saw that he was standing where one hallway joined a second, forming a T. Each way ended in a blur of white, so there was no way to tell where the other path led. He arbitrarily chose left and ran, narrowing his eyes to slits. With most of the light blocked, he could make out the lines of the walls and the brightest spots on the ceiling, which he figured had to be the lights. There was no time to smash them, though. Shredder followed close behind, laughing.

Most of the doors were locked. He tried each one that he felt but none of them opened. If he couldn't find any escape, he'd have to turn and face Shredder, little better than suicide. Thank God there weren't any ninjas on this level. Had he killed them all? Or was he simply on a higher floor than Saki had planned? Finally a door opened and he went in, slamming it shut. He found a latch and turned it, locking the door. It wouldn't keep Saki out for long, but it was better than nothing.

The room's lights were out. His eyes still felt like acid had been poured on them, but at least now the fire had been put out. He found the lightswitch and sliced the wall a few inches above it, severing the wires so the lights couldn't come on again, then looked around. If this hadn't been Saki's tower, he would have thought it was a normal office. File cabinets and desks lined up in neat rows, and the building's outer glass wall gave him a clear view of Manhattan.

There was no time to stop and look at the city. He needed to buy himself more time and distance between him and Saki. One by one, he tipped over file cabinets, spilling paperwork across the carpeted floor. Some were too heavy to push so he flung open their drawers and pulled out reams of material, working his way backwards to the air conditioning vent in the wall. There was nothing he could do for his arm except hope the bleeding would slow soon.

Metal spikes drove through the door, slicing it off its hinges. As the door fell forward, Leonardo took out all of his flash bombs and threw them to the floor between them. He turned his back and shut his eyes as the lights went off, filling the center of the room with smoke. Flames shot up from the burned paper and quickly spread across the floor, turning the room orange.

Leonardo didn't wait to see how Shredder handled the fire. He punched his hand through the grate and tore it out, wincing as the metal wires cut his knuckles, and climbed inside the vent. Up he went, easily scaling the sheer surface. His hands found the dents made in the aluminum by long use. When he couldn't find a handhold, he made one, beating the sides in. He went up faster than he expected, creeping like a spider with no trouble at all. His body knew instinctively how to move through sheer tunnels. Traveling in complete darkness, he stopped when he found another grate. He kicked it out and emerged in a darkened stairwell.

The doors all had narrow windows in them, letting him see which floors were still lit and which ones were safe. The one beside him was bright, giving off just enough light to bother his already sore eyes. He looked over the railing to see if he could tell how far down the building had power, but instead he spotted three rays of light several stories below. Two moved steadily while the third waved behind them, like someone scanning for threats from the rear.

The light beside him went out. At first he thought that floor had lost its electricity, but when he looked over, he saw Saki blocking the window, his metal armor glittering. Leonardo made his choice instantly. He couldn't go down, so he leaped the railing and landed in the middle of the next flight of stairs, pivoting and leaping for the next flight as Saki kicked the door in and gave chase.

With his new agility, Leonardo easily outpaced Saki, leaping the stairs instead of climbing them. His hands found purchase on smooth steel and his body compensated for his relative weakness, using his own centrifugal force to keep him balanced as he turned in midair. He didn't need to rely on both arms, favoring his slashed arm and only using one to guide himself. Despite his lead, though, he felt the first cold edge of panic with every floor they passed. Each door was brightly lit. Had he only knocked out power for the lower half of the building?

The stairwell abruptly ended. The final door was also well lit and Leonardo turned, about to retreat, but Shredder was already turning the corner, claws at the ready. There was no way to go back down and only a bright light before him, so he closed his eyes and pushed through the door. If the light was going to blind him anyway, he might as well avoid the pain. Using his maai was a last resort, one he didn't want to use, but he had nothing left.

The floor was a single room, probably a training room to tell by the muted echo. Without his eyes, he could only sense the outline of the walls, not the locations of any doors or the lights or even if there were any windows. The door opened again and he turned, drawing his swords and taking a defensive stance.

Shredder paused. Something was different. Between the elevator and now, the turtle's demeanor had changed again. The black eyes were shut but every thing else, the defensive posture, both swords out, the nervousness, all told him that this was his old enemy, not the new animalistic one. Both were dangerous, but this one inspired a different fear. This was the one that had taken his head. Perhaps he shouldn't have torn off the blue mask.

"What's the matter?" Saki asked. "Can't stand the light?"

Leonardo didn't answer. He couldn't afford to trade barbs. All of his concentration centered on his maai, the circle of his ki pulsating around him and the ripples Shredder sent through it. There was a wave, like a great force plunging towards him with two sharp thrusts from both sides, and Leonardo flipped backwards, bringing one sword up as he landed and using the other as a counterbalance.

Saki's dual slashes missed and he nearly walked into Leo's sword, dodging it at the last second and escaping with a small scratch on his chestplate. He tried a swift backhand that left him off balance when Leonardo slid under the stroke, nearly taking his arm off in the same move. Backing away a few steps, Saki reconsidered his enemy. Previous fights had shown him that Leonardo preferred quick, clean kills, not these vicious, potentially maiming cuts. This new blend of both defense and cruelty wasn't more dangerous than before, but a mistake held heavier consequences. He couldn't afford to cut and slash like before. What the hell was going on in that turtle's head? Couldn't he just pick a personality and stick with it?

For his own part, Leonardo stayed tense and alert. His ki gave the world a feeling of being deep underwater, and Saki's movements were only discernible by his ripples and waves, but they were clearer than he ever thought possible. He saw his enemy's labored breathing, heard his heartbeat, noticed every twitch and shift of his boots. The room became clear, that they were in its center, that there were four support pillars spaced evenly throughout, and that one wall felt so different, smooth where the others were rough, that it had to be made of glass.

He smiled. To hell with his eyes. Didn't need them. His prey stood before him and he could hear Saki's heart beating faster and faster, hear the blood pulsing through him, hot and sweet and thick, and all he had to do to get it was cut it out of Shredder's chest. He lunged, screaming, swords held up like claws.

Back on the stairwell, three flashlights shone up the stairs, but already the echoes of the heavy footfalls were fading. Whoever had been running around up there had disappeared again. Raphael picked up the pace, rounding the tight corners almost too fast to keep the flashlight focused on the steps. The people upstairs could have been foot ninjas, but they hadn't seen any for so long that he figured any survivors had seen the slaughter and run away. And the way one of the unknowns had been leaping around and the other had been running, Raphael figured one was chasing the other.

Leaping stairs, climbing a sheer elevator shaft, the scream earlier, all convinced Raph that his brother wasn't simply turning into a feeder. Screamers, Stockman's smaller genetic monsters with four legs, were the only creatures in those dark tunnels that scaled walls so easily. Even the giant demons couldn't climb without punching through walls with claws bigger than his hands. Raphael began to despair of bringing their elder brother back from the nightmare he'd become.

"Raph!" Don cried just a few feet behind him. "Wait!"

Raphael stopped and whirled, about to snap an insult back, when he spotted the orange glow Donatello had noticed. He came back to his brother's side, looking through the window in this floor's door. Flames filled the other side, melting the ceiling and eating through the walls. Smoke trickled under the door. Raph glanced at his brother.

"Why aren't the sprinklers going?" Mike asked. "That floor's got lights. Shouldn't it have power?"

"Don...?"

"I don't know," Donatello answered. "Some things just might not be working. Guys, we don't have long. If there's anything really combustible up here, this whole floor could go."

"And then what happens?"

"If one floor goes..." he held his hand out flat, palm down, then dropped it an inch, an inch, an inch. "You've seen how towers fall."

Raph nodded once. "We gotta go. Now." He took a deep breath and started up the stairs again. Halfway to the top he heard the faint sound of clashing metal. The higher he went, the clearer it came, the familiar crash of sword on armor. At least his brother was still alive and fighting, but for how long? Raphael felt like he was running through sand, like the stairs just got longer and longer. Round a corner, a flash of light from the door, darkness again, round a corner, flash of light, dark, light, dark, light, with the wild flickering of the flashlights around him. Whatever the outcome tonight, he knew he'd be visiting this moment in his nightmares for weeks to come.

The final door came so suddenly he ran into it, pushing it wide open and stumbling into a vast chamber. As he came through, the lights flickered and went out as the fire below ate through the electrical cords. Only the city lights through the floor length windows gave him a murky view of a metal floor, metal walls, and four support struts holding the ceiling. Shredder hadn't completed the renovations of his tower yet; this part was still unfinished.

And there in the middle of room, Leonardo and Saki sent sparks shooting through the darkness. Raphael froze for a moment. Even at this distance, he saw that his brother's eyes were shut. He wondered if his brother was back to normal for now, but his stance and the way he used his swords erased that hope. To fight like this, Leonardo had taken the most primal sense of ki, his maai, and merged it with the feeder instincts, creating an animal fighting style bent solely on his enemy's destruction. On the nature programs Donatello loved, Raphael had seen animals that killed for pleasure, and here he saw one more. When Saki dodged a slice aimed at his leg, Leo screamed in rage.

Raphael shut his eyes tight for a second. There would be no reasoning with his brother now. He glanced over his shoulder at his brothers just now catching up. "You two, find a way out of here."

"What?" Mike asked. "But we're so high up--"

"I know," Raph said. "Just do it." He drew his sais. All he could do was distract Shredder from gaining any advantage, and when he found an opportunity, steal Leonardo from the fight. Leaving his brothers to work a miracle, he ran in close, surprising Saki who rolled out of both turtles' reach and came back to his feet well away from them.

Locked in a bloodlust, Leonardo felt the presence of another creature in the room, hostile and dangerous to tell from its movements. His first target was out of reach so he turned his attention to this new one, lunging with a cross slash. When it leaped over him, he turned and brought his sword with him, just missing its back as it sprang forward again, well out of reach.

Raphael breathed hard and took another step back. His run upstairs had exhausted him and Leonardo was completely insane. His earlier despair weighed heavier on him. This was impossible. How could he bring him back? He couldn't fight both his brother and the Shredder, they would be stuck fighting in circles until the tower crumbled beneath them. He groaned and brought his sais up in defense. There had to be a way, he just hadn't found it yet.

"Looks like he doesn't remember you," Shredder growled, breathing just as hard.

"Shut up!" Raph snapped.

"This is almost worth the trouble he's cost me," Shredder continued, goading him. "I will have the pleasure of watching him kill you before I kill him."

"Like hell! He killed you last time, he'll do it again!" Raph glanced back at his brother, who hesitated between his two targets. "Even if he don't know what he's doing," he said softly.

Leonardo chose, moving the instant he decided. The stronger ki of his first prey drew him like a flame, that and the strong beat of his heart. It pounded so loud that Leo could hardly hear anything else, not even the sound of his claws scraping on Saki's skin. Shredder's blood rushed like a raging river, roaring in his ears and whetting his appetite. His bloodlust overwhelmed his anger, making him forget why he'd been angry in the first place. His world shrank into darkness and the heart beating for him.

Shredder's gauntlet blade lanced through his hand and he cried out, dropping his sword. A second blade cut down his uninjured arm, slicing so deep it felt like cold fire. His maai became a haze and the other two kis blurred, the stronger one sweeping over him like bright, burning light. He felt the second creature moving towards them, too slow to affect the outcome, and he stumbled towards his enemy.

Raphael screamed and ran towards them, but even as he moved he knew he'd be too late. Shredder drew his other arm back, ready to punch his metal claws into Leonardo's side. With his brother fallen against him, the strike was all too easy. He couldn't look away as Shredder struck, driving his arm forward.

They'd both forgotten how fast Leonardo could move. Without thinking, he reached up and plunged his hand into Saki's chest, using speed and sharp claws to compensate for his weakness. The shock of a hand tearing between his ribs halted Saki's strike before his blades sank more than an inch into Leo's side. Blood welled up in Saki's mouth and he spit blood over the mask. Trying to tear himself away, he pushed Leonardo as hard as he could and stumbled several paces back against a support pillar, one hand over the gaping hole in his chest.

Directly opposite him, Leonardo held his heart in one bloody hand. Exhausted, he collapsed to the floor, dropping the heart. It rolled and came to rest at Saki's feet. Shredder's eyes widened as he stared at it ,and he put one hand out towards it, as if he might take it back and replace it in his chest. With a soft groan he fell to his knees, then fell completely forward, dead before he hit the floor. Raphael let go a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. Only after several seconds of watching, waiting for Shredder to leap up like some movie monster and unconvinced even when nothing happened, he warily knelt beside the body and nudged it, then turned it over. Shredder's eyes, wide and distant, stared at nothing. The gaping wound no longer even bled.

Without Shredder to worry about anymore, Raphael started to notice the temperature in the room rising. He frowned. It wasn't just warm. It was turning uncomfortably hot. He looked down and remembered that the floor was metal. If the fire had eaten its way up through the floors below, then it was probably coming up through the stairwell, too. He turned around to look and saw Mike next to Donatello, both of them sliding climbing claws onto their hands.

"Oh, tell me you ain't thinking what I think you're thinking," Raph said.

"Can't go down the way we came up," Mike said. "I just looked. No way, man."

"And we can't go up," Donatello said. "We have to hope Shredder made the outer glass thick enough to take our claws. Mike, could you--"

"Way ahead of you," Mike said, heading for the glass windows. He had to slam his nunchucks into a single pane several times before the thick glass cracked and shattered.

Raph tried to convince himself that it might work. If it didn't, they'd have to catch one of the ledges as the tower widened farther down, and try to spring towards another building. Anything but stay in what was about to become a deathtrap. The hardest part would be bringing Leo--

The far wall exploded inward, sending concrete and steel flying through the room while the shockwave shattered the windows and nearly pushed Mike out with them. Only a quick whip of his chucks around a slender steel frame kept him from falling out. Closer to the blast, Raphael fell sideways as flaming bits of debris showered around and on him. Cursing wildly, he shook them off and scrambled to his feet, staring at the flaming wreckage. Whatever the fire had hit, it had taken out a large section of this floor. He could actually see into the floors below, now nearly burned through.

There was no more time. He turned to grab his brother and stopped. Leo was no longer merely collapsed. He seemed to have sunk into himself. At first Raphael didn't know why he'd thought that, but after a second he realized it had nothing to do with Leo's slumped posture and everything to do with his unwillingness to move despite the fire creeping closer. He sat completely still, even though he must have felt the explosion and heard the fire and felt the heat, as if he was waiting for the fire to catch up and devour him.

The thought actually gave Raphael a glimmer of hope. Animals weren't suicidal. If Leo wasn't trying to get out of the tower, he might be back in his right mind again. Or at least somewhat normal, Raph thought. Just in case he had to dodge a surprise attack, he approached him from the side, kneeling next to him when he didn't move.

Leonardo at first did not notice him. All he knew was that his prey...his enemy was dead. His brothers were dead. All the rest was confusion. He remembered Shredder pulling away his mask and blinding him, remembered setting the fire and climbing through darkness. And then he was sitting here on the floor, staring at Saki's heart. The inbetween of that was a blur of red and black, blood and shadows, anger and emptiness.

Someone touched his shoulder and he looked up, but he didn't recognize his brother beyond a vague recollection of familiarity, that this person was important to him somehow. This person was somehow the reason he had needed to kill the man before him, and as much as he wanted to lay still and let the fire swallow his pain, he had to keep this person from the fire.

Raphael said something, but Leonardo didn't understand him. While Raphael tried to talk to him, Leonardo ignored him and looked at the flames surrounding the gaping hole in the floor. The light hurt his eyes but only because of their earlier injuries in the bright hallway. More importantly, he heard the fire and listened to its crackling beneath him, seeing in his mind the patterns and routes it took. He heard it swirling around the floor, enclosing them and chewing through the stairwell. But there was one more route, directly in the center of the inferno.

With that in mind, he seized Raphael's wrist and suddenly came to his feet, running towards the flames. Caught off guard, Raphael stumbled after him, pulled along too fast to get any leverage. He could have easily stopped his brother if he'd had a second's warning, but Leonardo moved without thought. Raph had time to scream before he was forced over the edge of the twisted floor and into the fire below.

At the windows, Mike and Donatello shared a horrified look before running after them, stopping at the edge of the fire and looking down in time to see Raphael fall sideways into the blown out section of the elevator shaft. There was a vague path through the flames to the shaft, but both of them hesitated, forced a step back by the intense heat and their instinctive fear. Mike looked back at the shattered windows and figured that either way was just as dangerous, and this way would give them a better chance of escaping without being seen. Ultimately, though, it came down to his trust in his eldest brother. Despite everything, he still trusted Leo to bring them through any problem, so he jumped down into the only clear section in the room and ran for the dark shaft, knowing that Donatello would follow right behind him.

Not even waiting to see if Raph or Leo were in the way, they jumped into the shaft, escaping the worst of the heat. The metal around them was already turning red so they didn't bother trying to climb down the walls. Mike grabbed the steel cord holding the elevator and slid down. The claws protected his hands from friction burns for the most part, but he knew already that the skin around the length of metal would need bandaging later.

Only a few floors below them, Leonardo had opened the emergency hatch on top of the elevator, understanding it less as a door and more like a weak spot he could pry apart. Once inside, he paused. The fire had consumed most of this floor. Slipping through the gap between the elevator and floor would be quick but would still mean going through flames.

Something flew by his face so fast he didn't have time to be startled. A second later a white explosion filled the area near them, dousing the flames for a few seconds. This time Raphael took his brother's hand and forced him out. The fire extinguisher's explosion would buy them enough time to get through, though he hated the loss of his sai. He heard his brothers land on the elevator and followed after Leonardo to give Mike and Don room to come after him.

He didn't understand how Leo could move through the sheer metal walls, crawling down them like a spider while he had to use his climbing claws. A few stolen seconds let him touch the walls Leo had passed and he found deep dents and even a few punctures. If Leonardo's changes were as drastic as they thought, small wonder that his body was altering itself to match his mind.

Of course now he had the ability to move faster than his brother, sliding down the uninterrupted elevator cable. He'd ask Donatello later why this one had cable underneath as well as above, but for now he accepted it as divine intervention and slid fast enough to burn his hands despite his claws.

Donatello followed only seconds behind him, and Mike followed after just as the fire swept back towards him. He grabbed the cable and slid faster despite the pain. The building shuddered with another explosion. He didn't want to think about how much more time they had. It was like a timed puzzle in one of his video games where he had to leap over a bunch of fences with a giant boulder rolling after him. He hated that puzzle; he had yet to beat it.

Mike could tell when they'd passed into the bloodiest sections of the tower; the copper smell permeated the shaft. He breathed out. They were making good time if they were this far down. Just like the long shaft in the Game, the smell would be strongest where the blood gathered at the bottom.

Only Leonardo knew that the walls were bleeding where the amount he'd shed found its way through vents and gaps in the floors. He struggled to keep his grip on the metal but slipped several times, coming down faster than he should have. Too soon, he lost control and fell, plummeting past the three creatures he was guiding.

Fortunately he only fell a few feet, landing hard on the basement floor. He winced and sat up, holding his battered left arm. It didn't feel broken, but not for his lack of trying. Above him, Raphael slowed and landed softly, warned only by Leonardo's accident and saving himself a broken leg. He immediately searched the wall for the doors and, once found, dug his fingers into the space between them, forcing them open. Donatello and Michelangelo helped as soon as they landed, and soon they had the doors pried far enough for them to slip through. Raph went first, looking for a way out. Donatello's flashlight, the last one they had only because he hadn't dropped his bag, lit up what was now obviously a parking garage. And in the corner they saw the garage door down and the city lights sparkling along the sides. Trusting one of his siblings to bring Leo after them, Raphael crossed the long distance to the door and used his only sai to break the chains holding it shut and destroy the locking mechanism.

While Donatello went after Raphael to help, Mike bent and took Leo's hand, helping him stand. He didn't like the raggedness of his brother's breathing or the cold touch of his skin. It had all the earmarks of a dying animal. There was enough light to see the blood on his brother, but he couldn't tell which was Leo's and which was everyone else's. In any case, Leo followed him easily enough, head down, leaning heavy on his shoulder. Mike put his arm around him when he felt him falter. By the time they reached the open door, Donatello had already cleared the street and Raphael had smashed the nearest streetlights, giving them enough shadows to escape.

Behind them, sirens crowded the streets. Only after putting several streets between them and the tower did they come to rest in an alley to wait for the police and fire engines and ambulances to finish driving by. There were so many news channel vans that none of them wanted to risk stepping out, even to get home that much faster. After a few minutes, when the adrenaline and fear started to wane, they noticed that it was raining ice and slush.

"Great," Raph muttered, huddling closer to the brick wall. "Why does shit like this always happen to us during winter?"

Donatello sidled close to him. "Karma. You must've done something really bad in a past life."

"Me?" Raph asked. "Can't be my karma. Leo's the one who just slaughtered the foot clan."

They looked at Leo and Mike, both standing in the frozen rain. Leo didn't look like he was going to move and Mike was loathe to leave him alone. Bit by bit, the ice rinsed away the blood, revealing the true extent of his injuries. Mike winced when he saw the cuts along his arms and sides, the deep gash through his hand, the giant bruises along his legs. The ice couldn't wash the blood from those wounds, as thick as it had dried, and Mike couldn't help but notice the ice's reflection in Leo's black eyes. He stared into them, wondering how much of his brother remained.

Leo's torn hand came to rest on Mike's shoulder, and Leo tilted his head. The cold and the respite from killing drove back the bloodlust and he looked at the creature he'd guided out of the tower. Long seconds passed before he put the shadow and light together to make a familiar face, and even more time passed before he could put a name, a memory, to the face.

"You're alive," he whispered. "You're alive."

Mike felt like he'd fall in relief. Leo's voice was sickly sharp like a quiet scream, and the tips of his fingers felt too pointed, and it didn't help that pure black eyes were a staple in horror films, but his brother was still in there somewhere. "Yeah," he answered. "I'm right here."

"I heard you die."

"No," Mike shook his head. "That was mushroom smoke, Spanish mushrooms I think."

Raph looked at Don. "Spanish mushrooms?"

Donatello just shook his head. Why did he try to explain anything to them?

The sirens and news vans were slowing down. Raph decided it was time to move, especially now that Leo was at least somewhere between himself and the thing inside him. He flipped open his communicator and dialed his master. Three voices yelled at him before he had a chance to talk.

"Raphael, is that--"

"--you find him--?"

"--out of there--"

"--is Leo still--"

"Hang on!" he snapped. "We got him, we're out, Shredder's dead, the whole clan's dead. Anything else?"

"All of them?" Splinter asked. "How is that possible?"

"Leo--no, it's a long story. I'll explain when we get home," Raph said. "Should only take us a few minutes. Could you crank up the heater? We're gonna be frozen when we get there."

"Sure thing," April said, already heading towards Donatello's lab and the climate controls inside.

"Raphael," Splinter said. "Your brother? Is he still..." He paused as he tried to figure out how to ask the question.

"He's not all here," Raph answered, glancing at his sibling. Without the drive to kill, Leo seemed less like a psychopath and more like a curious animal. He just hoped he wouldn't bite on the way home. "But he's not dangerous right now, and Don says he's got an idea to get him back to normal."

"Very well," Splinter said. "Come home as fast as you can."

"We're on our way." He flipped off the communicator and headed down the alley, but luck was with him. There was a manhole cover only a few feet away. As tired as he was, it took a little time to manage it off and then Mike had to lead their brother in after them, but within a few minutes they were underground and heading home. Above ground, the rain turned to snow and blanketed the manhole in gray slush.

TBC...