Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Fan Fiction ❯ Bad Places II: Rebirth ❯ 3 ( Chapter 3 )

Part 3

Early the next morning, Raphael made his rounds to check on the lair and his family. Donatello slept soundly slumped over his desk, Stockman's notes and equations spread out before him. Raphael set a blanket over his shoulders. It was too late to get him into bed. Hopefully he wouldn't be too sore when he woke up.

In Mike's room, the new nightlight in the shape of Spiderman leaping off the wall kept the area around the bed bathed in a gold glow. Raph drew the blanket back up from where Mike had kicked it during the night. After the first few nights home, when Mike started sleeping in his own room again, he found that he couldn't sleep in total darkness anymore. Even just a couple of days in the game's black halls left him reliving the screams and sounds of bones crunching in his dreams. Since Raph had picked up the nightlight for him, he slept without nightmares, without curling up in the corner of his bed, eyes squeezed shut, calling for one of his big brothers. Raph left him resting easily, picking his way over the simple tripwires he left near the door.

Leonardo was not in his room. Raphael went in anyway and found the bottle of valium on the mattress. The pills were so big he could tell when one of them was gone, but he opened it and counted anyway to be sure.

"28...29...30...31..." Yup, one gone. He put the top back on and stuffed the bottle under the pillow with a new artbook, one with a samurai on the cover. It reminded him to look for his brother's swords, but he only spotted the empty stands in the corner. Hoping his sibling hadn't taken off during the night, Raphael left the room and headed downstairs, toward the practice room.

He heard metal sweeping through the air before he saw Leonardo in the center of the darkened room, a single candle in the corner his only light as he moved through the enclosed space, coming close to hitting the walls but never touching them. Careful not to make a sound, Raphael crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe, watching the twists and feints and counter feints and wild slashes that would have sent heads across the floor. He shook his head in awe. His big brother was a good artist, but fifteen years had made him a deadly swordsman.

And then Leonardo began to slow down, coming out of a landing with a single sweep from the ground up, dissecting whoever he had in his head, and as he brought the sword back down to a defensive extension, he came to a stop. Raph's head snapped up. Leo hadn't said anything so he couldn't have heard him come in, and his breathing came back to normal, which meant he wasn't tensing up for a new attack.

Not again, Raph thought. It's been half a year, these have stopped.

As the minutes dragged, Raphael looked down and winced. Maybe Leo just hadn't told them--but no, he'd watched him on occasion, this hadn't happened for months.

In Leonardo's head the fight continued, but the sensations suddenly became more real, more solid. He heard the shriek of a screamer to his right as he whirled, sliced it in half as he ducked a feeder's swipe, jabbed his sword up into its head, then lunged forward and rolled under a wave of screamers as they poured out of the ceiling, ignoring the blood and gore he had to slide through before he could stand again. He managed to get behind the main attack but as he stood, he heard the heavy steps of a demon coming down the hall, small enough to run quickly but large enough to scare everything else back. He held his sword up and lowered his head, waiting for it to get closer. At that speed he couldn't escape, but there was a chance he could slice its head in half, if he didn't mind those teeth up against his face. But there was no help here, no steady bullets piercing its hide, no knife watching his back. He stared down the hall, his only light the faint blue veins pulsing along the floor, and held his breath, waiting for the monster to reach him, for the right moment to kill.

"Leo!"

He dropped the sword. The demon lunged and passed through him as the hall faded back into the practice room and Raphael was beside him, hand holding his shoulder too tight, ready to block anything Leo might aim at him. And a very worried look on his face. Leo let out a breath and shook his head.

"It's all right," he said softly. "I'm..." Fine? Good? Obviously not. "...back."

"Where'd you go?" Raph asked, but he already knew the answer.

"To the game. Weird, though." Leo knelt and picked his sword up. "I was alone this time."

"We weren't there?"

"No...not even Felix or Chanta." Leo sheathed his sword and glanced at him. "That's never happened before."

"What about this? It happened recently or this the first time?"

"'This' what?"

"This," Raph said, gesturing at his brother, "going away, stopping in the middle of practice, this."

"I..." Leo glanced at the kitchen, then back at Raphael. This conversation was probably going to take awhile and his legs were already sore from the workout that a regulated kata couldn't give. "Can we get something to eat? I'm starving..."

With a nod, Raphael laughed as they walked across the lair. "That gives me a good idea of when it happens. Usually I have to force feed you."

"I'm not that bad," Leo said. "It's not too often. Once a month, I think, when I'm practicing alone."

"And why didn't you say anything?"

"They were slowing down." Leaning against the kitchen counter, Leo watched his brother fish something out of the fridge, automatically taking what was offered. More leftover egg drop soup. He had a very limited diet now, still re-acclimating himself to eating.

"Kinda worries me that you only get hungry after going back," Raph said, opting for leftover supreme pizza. "Especially knowing what was in there."

"When I could barely eat just after?" Leo said. "I don't remember it so well now."

"You were in three months."

Figuring they weren't going to sit at a table, Leo hopped onto the counter and leaned against the wall. "I mean, I'm forgetting certain things. How the place smelled, how it felt to move through the bodies. I don't even remember how the halls sounded when we weren't fighting."

"What do you remember?"

"Small things," Leo said, his voice becoming distant. "The light on the floor. How blood was slightly darker than the shadows. The sound of a demon's claws. A screamer's yell. Mostly how it felt to cut something apart and not feel any guilt for it."

Finished with his own breakfast, Raph looked down at the floor. Six months and they still couldn't get Leo back to his pre-game notions of necessary kills. Splinter had confided in him his concerns that Leonardo had tasted the joy of slaughter, and even though Raph wasn't sure what that meant, he didn't like the sound of it.

"Do you like killing?"

Leonardo blinked and stared at him. "What?"

"Do you like killing?" Raph stared back and held his breath. As far as he knew, it was the first time anyone had asked his brother that point blank without dancing around the subject.

Halls full of broken demons and creatures, claws twitching, limbs spasming, blood coating everything and still raining down on him. White Talons prone or in pieces in the street in front of April's shop, blood flowing into the gutters with the rain, the stench of urine and bile that he hadn't really noticed at the time but remembered now. The handful of girls in front of the liquor store, holding their guns like pros, ready to head in until he cut their fingers off, slit open their arms and left them crying on the sidewalk while the shop owner called 911. Four elites in a neat bloodless row and one more headless in an alley.

"Not entirely." He heard Raphael's quick breath and raised one hand to calm him. "I'm not bloodthirsty. I've never killed unless I had to. But there's a...a..." He growled and looked away. "I can't think of a word. Exhilaration? Rush? Satisfaction?"

"That they're dead?"

"That I defeated them. That they tried to kill me and I survived." He finished the last of his soup and set the box aside. "Where the fight becomes less about what we're fighting for and more about victory, about the next hit. Like a hunt. Am I being clear?"

"Yeah..." Raph nodded slowly. "Less about the reason you're fighting and more about fighting well. Killing well."

Leo didn't answer for a moment, following the patterns in the stone floor. Grey swirls and hard lines flowed on the bricks, reminding him of Splinter's zen garden. "I didn't enjoy killing those elites."

Raphael took the box and threw it away. "I was worried a little. What about that one you chased down?"

"Took his head off." Leo looked up at his brother. "If he'd gotten to Shredder and told him how I've changed, faster but weaker, half-blind...I can't risk him learning it."

"I know..." Raphael suddenly laughed. "I get it. The message. You gave Shredder your own message."

"A reminder. If he thinks he's escaped death, I can bring it right back to him." He put his arms around himself. "I hope."

Upstairs and in the backroom they heard their brothers and friends waking up. Leo took that as his cue to retreat to the bridge, watching the water appear and disappear, while Raphael went back upstairs to yank Michelangelo out of bed. Splinter came out of his room first, coming across the bridge on his way to the kitchen.

"Good morning," he said softly, "no nightmares?"

"A few, master," Leo admitted. "Nothing bad."

Splinter nodded and continued walking. Leonardo went back to gazing at the water. He hadn't told anyone that his worst nightmares were not of the game but of the days before the game, slave to his family's needs, and that when he sat bolt upright in bed, it was not because a demon had caught him in its jaws but because he felt a crushing weight on his shoulders, felt the need to run and leave it behind. Only because it dissipated to nothingness when he finally woke up did he manage to stay in the lair.

"Mornin'," Casey called out to anyone in range. He swiped the rest of the pizza, leaving take-out boxes and mystery leftovers from several days back.

It wouldn't matter much, this early in the morning Donatello survived on coffee and Mike could eat anything. Leo considered offering to make a food run, but only if he could drag one of his siblings with him. After a nightmare and a revisit to the game, he needed to make sure he'd come home. He was pretty sure he wouldn't run, but better to err on the side of the caution.

He remained on the bridge as they gathered around the televisions, Casey and April on the couch, Splinter on the recliner, Don and Mike on the floor and Raphael leaning over the couch. For a few seconds they suffered through Mike changing the channels as fast as he could press the button, and then Raphael snatched the control out of his hand and set it to the news.

Leonardo winced and waited for it.

"...and that's world news. In local news, police are investigating a group homicide in east Manhattan. An anonymous tip led investigators to a grisly scene, four bodies with broken necks laid out side by side. Police are not drawing any conclusions yet regarding gang violence but have not ruled out a ritual killing due to the methodical display of the bodies. A suspected fifth victim wearing similar oriental clothing was found several blocks away, decapitated. If you have any information, please contact the authorities.

In our continuing coverage of the river exploration project, police are still investigating witness reports of a large burst of light several weeks ago--"

The lair was silent. Leo wished he'd retreated to his room even a minute ago. He heard Splinter stand and approach, and he took a deep breath.

"Five elites?"

"Yes, master. Raphael helped me stop them."

"But..." Splinter looked him over. "You are uninjured."

"They couldn't touch me," Leo whispered. "I snapped the first one's neck easily. Then one ran off and I had to run him down before he could tell the Shredder. When I came back, Raphael had the other three bound and we got what we could out of them."

"And then?"

"And then I sent Raphael home."

Splinter thought that over, then nodded. "Five elites is no small achievement, even with your brother. I am merely thankful neither of you was hurt."

Leo looked at him in confusion. "You...?"

"You had to keep them from taking a message back to Saki. I doubt you took pleasure in their deaths." Splinter put his hand on his son's. "I take it you were the anonymous phone call?"

"Yes, master." Leo paused, then said in a rush, "I didn't want to kill all of them but--"

"I know," Splinter said. "I do not see this as a slaughter, Leonardo. Distasteful as it is, it had to be done to safeguard your brothers. But...the one in the alley...?"

"He was already dying," Leo said. "I...I used him to send my own message."

Splinter sighed and looked back into the water. Leo wasn't sure what, but he knew he'd done something wrong. "Master?"

"I pray this war ends soon," Splinter said. "Especially for you." With one last pat on his hand, Splinter left and returned to his room. A second later Raphael followed him. Each time that happened now, Leo felt as if he'd been punched, feeling the need to join Splinter but forced to accept that was his brother's duty now. With a resigned breath, he turned and went back upstairs, forcing himself not to run, escaping into his dark room. He stretched out on his bed, staring between the stars on the ceiling into black space, a cold darkness that took him back to the game, where the rules were simple.

Kill. Be killed. Over and over again. He'd never missed it so much.

TBC...

Note: Shredder was an alien? What? He was always human in the comics. (Yes, I'm following the series on dvd, just up to the Ultimate Ninja here.) Yeah, well, we're going with the comics on this one. He's human.