Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Fan Fiction ❯ Bad Places ❯ 15 ( Chapter 15 )

Part 15

Despite the shock of seeing a demon and seeing it dripping an ungodly amount of blood, one thing penetrated Donatello's mind. No matter Leonardo's present mental state, a command from him, in that tone, wouldn't let him do anything but act. The computer was destroyed but there was a printed copy of the warehouse inventory somewhere in the rubble. He picked his way through the metal wreckage, wires still zapping and crackling, and started looking.

April knelt next to Raphael and Mike, taking shelter with them amidst several crates. There was nothing she could do to help Raphael that Mike wasn't already doing, so she peeked over the edge of the crates, watching the demon close in on Leonardo. "What's he doing?" she whispered. "He's just standing there!"

Leo tipped his head up slightly, not moving as it slithered closer. April put one hand over her mouth. There was no fear on his face, no surprise, not even anger. Just a cold determination that reminded her of the night he'd decimated the white claws.

Then the demon dived, jaws open, towards him, and Leonardo moved.

At least, she thought he moved. One moment he was there, the next he was standing next to its lowered head, slicing deep into its throat. Blood sprayed out and poured on the ground, but the cut didn't kill it and he didn't expect it to, dodging left as it turned its head as fast as a snake striking, its teeth snapping on empty air. It heard him moving behind it and turned, its tail smashing part of the concrete wall and the support columns in its way. The ceiling shuddered but held, pieces of glass shaken down as it roared.

April turned and sat back down, one hand still pressed tight against her mouth. She closed her eyes but she couldn't stop the sound of it howling. A hand softly touched hers and she looked up. Strange, but she hadn't noticed the blood soaking Mike's bandana. It made him look a little like Raphael.

"It's okay," Mike said, looking into her eyes. "He'll kill it."

She nodded once and forced herself to think about something else. Her gaze fell on Raphael's arm, hanging limp with the look of broken bones, but he didn't seem to be in much pain. Maybe it had to do with the dimension he'd just come out of, or it was simply the effect of having a demon in the same room. The only reason he didn't jump up and join Leonardo was his youngest brother holding him down, forcing him to stay still.

Hauling a twisted metal sheet out of the way, Donatello found the clipboard, singed but in one piece. He fell to his knees and flipped through the pages, passing the images of Stockman's engineered monsters, schematics for the dimension, mind boggling physics and truly ingenious equations. All that mattered right now was a bit of stock keeping.

"Found it," he yelled. He looked at the humans searching the crates on the far end of the warehouse. "Numbers fifty through sixty are munitions!"

Chanta didn't hear him but Felix did, and he grabbed her arm and pulled her down the row of crates, counting them off as they ran. At fifty he stopped and found a crowbar, and together they started breaking tops off.

Leonardo saw none of it. Adrenalin sang through him. His brothers were safe, the battle was his, the air lost all its resistance and gravity ceased to exist. He was death incarnate, protector and destroyer, this was what he was meant to be! He dodged when the demon dived, rolled under its swiping claws, came up under it and slashed through its skin, cutting open its stomach. Undigested screamers and feeders, all in various states of decay, tumbled out in a torrent of blood and acid. As fast as he moved, his right arm burned and there was no time to treat it. He looked around and saw that it had worked him into a corner, and acid was quickly spreading across the floor. With no place to go, he jumped on its tail and climbed up its back, using his sword for leverage when it moved.

There was life in it yet, whipping itself from one end of the warehouse to the other like a fish on land, its tail cracking the walls. Large chunks of the ceiling started crumbling away, smashing on the floor. Cold drops hit his skin and he looked up in time to catch a flash of lightning through the gaping holes in the roof. Fitting, he thought, it began with rain, it ends in rain.

Across the building, Felix and Chanta uncovered caches of small arms in the first crate, then automatics in the second crate. After sharing a look, they passed up crates fifty-two through fifty-nine and pried the top off of number sixty. Chanta gave a whoop of joy. A bazooka, gift-wrapped and ready, one round lay beside it. She reached down to pick it up, then frowned. She tried again, and she slowly realized that it was not bolted to the box, she simply could not lift it. Felix put his hands beside hers and, between them, they managed to haul it out and onto the floor. She went back for the round, stepping inside the crate and hugging it to her chest. After several tries, they succeeded in loading it. They shared another look. Groaning, she stepped in front of him and helped lift it off the ground, then positioned it on her shoulder, lowering her head. Behind her, Felix got it onto his own shoulder and bent down so that it was even, then tapped her shoulder so she moved right.

"Leo!" he yelled. "I can't aim this too good!"

Busy hanging onto the demon's back, Leo spared a glance towards his voice. In the red light, they appeared as one of Stockman's creatures, a small demon with four legs, four arms and a great eye staring at him. Then he recognized the missile launcher and looked down. The demon wasn't so big that its body would shield him from the blast. He pulled out his sword and stepped off onto a stack of crates beside it.

Felix fired. The blast deafened Chanta and she stumbled to her knees after it launched, hands over her ears, and the bazooka clanged to the ground. Felix ignored her, watching the round hit the demon's front and explode out the back and the mess that splatted against the wall a second before the wall itself exploded. That side of the warehouse finally buckled and came down, crushing its tail and pinning it to the floor.

With mortar and wood strewn across the ground, Leonardo could come out safely, walking around to its front. Despite half of its body missing, it still breathed, gasping for air and scraping its one good arm on the ground, weakly trying to pull itself out from the debris. Leonardo looked at it for several seconds, meeting its eyes. It stared at him, then opened its mouth and tried to bite, straining its neck towards him. It fell several inches short.

But the move brought his sword within reach, still firmly lodged in its throat. He reached and grasped the hilt, drawing it out, and with the last of his strength and weight in the slash, completed the cut. Its head rolled sideways, it blinked, and he watched the light fade from its eyes. Its body shuddered, the breath left it, and it completely relaxed.

He looked up at the sky. Rain drummed down on them both, and absently he raised his arm, letting the water wash away the acid. His right arm looked as bad as his left now. He glanced around for his brother but found he was on the wrong side of the demon. They were somewhere in the warehouse and he was practically outside, standing in the collapsed section. He froze and looked behind himself. The walls were broken wide open, the night was dark, and they couldn't see him.

Sheathing his swords as he walked, he walked into the night.

Raphael knew something was wrong even before he saw the destroyed section of the warehouse. He pushed Mike's hand aside and stood up, walking towards the dead demon. When he saw the destroyed walls, he knew where his brother was. Donatello came up beside him, reaching to tend his arm, but Raphael waved him aside.

"The communicator," he said. "Is it still on?"

"Huh?"

"Leo's communicator, the one you tracked him on." Raphael wished he could smack him to make him remember faster. "Tell me it's still on."

"Oh, right." Donatello pulled out the communicator in his belt and opened it up, and a second later a green dot flashed on the screen. "Signal's pretty faint. The batteries must be nearly dead."

Raphael looked at the screen and watched the dot, wondering if it was moving at all. "He's not far. Don, you get April and Mike back home. I'll follow once I pick him up."

"Whoa, wait," Donatello said, and April started to join in with her objections.

"No!" Raphael grit his teeth. Now was not time to let his temper loose. "None of you will be able to bring him home. It's got to be me."

"But your arm," Mike said. "If...I mean, if he..."

"He won't hurt me," Raph said. "I promise. Now get going. And Don, get the sick room ready, huh? For all three of us."

"Yeah, okay." Don tried not to look at his arm. "Promise you'll be careful?"

"Promise." Raphael took one more look at the tracking device, then left the warehouse.

Donatello watched him go, then glanced up at the two humans coming closer. Chanta leaned on Felix who bore her weight with a grumble. In the distance they heard police sirens and fire engines, drawn by the explosions. She grinned at him, blowing a lock of hair from her face and putting one hand to her ear, still ringing from the blast.

"You'd better take off," she said. "I don't think you wanna be around to answer questions."

"True," Don said. "You'll be all right?"

"No problem," Chanta said. "I got people waiting for me. Officers, bureaucrats, HMO specificied plastic surgeons..."

The sirens were coming closer, but Don had to settle it in his mind. "You promise you won't mention what we are? I mean, if the government got wind of us--"

"--they'd be more worried you weren't paying taxes," she said. "It ain't X-Files out there."

"But if you ever change your mind," Felix said, "let me know. You could put that genius to good use. The DoD would love you."

Donatello would have asked what he meant, but the sirens cut him short.

"Better go now," she said, and they watched Donatello, April and Michelangelo disappear into the darkness.

Topside, Raphael was still following his sibling. The moment he was out of Donatello's sight, he'd winced and held his arm with his good hand. "Dammit, Leo, you're really starting to piss me off." The sky was overcast and the rain cold as ice.

He found him only a few warehouses down the shore, limping, head down, leaning against the wall as he walked. Raphael touched the dark streak left on the wall at arm's level. His brother was still bleeding. He walked a little faster, stopping only a few feet behind him. Leonardo hadn't turned, though he had to have heard him.

"Leo, wait."

Leonardo paused, then turned his head slightly, not looking at him. "I can't do it, Raph. I can't. It's too much."

"Then don't," Raph said, breathing hard. His arm was starting to throb even worse. "Let it go, give it up, but just come home."

"It's not that easy," Leo said, his voice wavering. He leaned harder on the wall, still not turning. The thrill of the fight was gone, gravity dragged and the air turned to lead around him. "I can't mix and match."

Raphael watched him tremble, exhaustion beating him down. That demon had stolen the last bit of strength from him. He partly stared in admiration, that his elder brother had taken so much and was only now breaking down. He hoped he could do as much in the years to come. But for the time being, part of him was glad Leo was finally coming apart, making it that much easier to take him home.

"Either I stay and lose myself," Leo whispered, "or I leave."

"And go where?"

"...anywhere."

"Because," Raph ventured, "any place that isn't home...it's all the same?"

Shaking, Leo nodded once.

There was nothing more to say. He couldn't convince him here and now. That would come later. He stepped forward and dodged the weak punch. Leonardo was faster than lightning but too tired, too broken, to use that speed. Raphael grabbed the back of his neck and slammed him into the wall, and Leo barely turned his face aside in time. He cried out as Raphael held him still, his whole world reduced to just two sensations, the rough concrete beneath his face and the rain stinging his skin, washing the blood away.

"I'm taking you home," Raph whispered. "You need us as much as we need you."

Leo shut his eyes tight, and part of him wished he could stay right there, trapped in between forever. But then Raphael drew him back and led him on, keeping a tight grip on his wrist as he took him home, guiding him through the dark. Before they reached the lair, the darkness overwhelmed him and he was falling, falling back through the shaft, waiting to hit the bottom and wishing someone would catch him.

TBC...