Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Fan Fiction ❯ Bad Places III: Ruin ❯ Chapter 10

Part 10

Stepping in close, Leonardo came right up to the ninja's face, too close for him to use his swords effectively. Before the ninja could back up, Leonardo grabbed his head and twisted it to one side as hard as he could. The move took all his strength and he turned his whole body into it, but a wet snap rewarded his effort, along with two metallic clatters as the swords fell from limp hands.

He let the body fall and bent to pick up the swords. Never had the hilts felt so natural in his hands, as if holding a sword completed each arm. The steel glimmered in the red light and sliced through the air perfectly.

Even more satisfying, though, was the knowledge of who he was fighting. So what if the foot clan had control of Stockman's creatures? He'd defeated the foot before and there didn't seem to be any creatures left onboard.

But who was leading them? Shredder brought back from the dead again? He'd killed Shredder twice now, although he had to admit that the thought of facing him again no longer made him anxious. Whether that was because it was hard to worry about killing someone after he'd done it twice already or because he knew he would die tonight, he wasn't sure.

More likely it was someone new that he hadn't seen before, someone risen up from the ranks of the Japanese branch of the clan. He nodded to himself. Good. He could wipe out a little more of the foot clan before he died. Although he couldn't keep his brothers safe anymore, one less rising star in that clan would make their lives easier.

Of course he had to find the rest of the foot clan, and he didn't think he could do that if he kept running around blindly. The ship corridors were narrow with small doors that veered off every few feet. Depending on his hearing would only work for so long. Once the foot found out about their intruder, they would charge his position. They knew the ship far better than he did. It would be only be a matter of time before they lured him into an ambush.

His best hope of finding the leader before they found him was to look without his eyes. Lowering his swords, he breathed out, closed his eyes and concentrated solely on his maai. At first all he felt was cold steel around him like a cage, but as he pressed outward, slipping into a light trance, he felt something at the very edges of his awareness. He frowned. How could it be behind him?

Suddenly the presence noticed him and knocked him out of his trance, but not before he realized exactly who it was. Pausing long enough to steal the dead ninja's sheathes, Leonardo turned just as he heard footsteps coming up the stairway not too far away.

"He has sensed our presence," he heard Splinter saying. "Hurry!"

"Why'd he bother sensing us?" Raphael grumbled. "Anyone could hear Mike's stomach growling a mile away."

"Hey, it's not my fault we missed dinner!"

Knowing he was making far too much noise as he ran, Leonardo tried to block out his family's voices as he ran recklessly through each corridor, turning every corner that he could. Perhaps Splinter was following his spiritual presence because they never missed a single turn.

Fortunately he didn't have to rely solely on his maai. As he leaned into the next turn, he unsheathed his sword, slit another ninja's throat before he could attack, and continued through the room before the ninja completely fell from his hiding place behind the door. Leonardo sighed as he ran. The blood and bodies didn't help hide his trail, but at least his siblings wouldn't be attacked on the way.

He was moving so fast that by the time he went through the next door, he nearly didn't stop in time. He stopped himself at the railing and in the dim red light saw that the corridor opened into a flooded cargo hold with a walkway that wrapped around the room, leading to other doors on either side.

And the walkway was full of ninjas.

The element of surprise gave him just enough time to kill the first two ninjas on his left before he was rushed from both sides. As he ducked under one sword and lunged across the metal floor, slowly moving around the hold, a loud siren filled the whole ship. Probably an intruder alert, he figured.

He'd just worked his way into a corner when he heard Michelangelo yelping in surprise. He couldn't help turning to look, and the move nearly cost him his head as he jerked away from a close swipe of a ninja's sword. As he ducked back, he spotted his siblings coming through the door and met Michelangelo's eyes.

"There he is!" his little brother yelled.

"Dammit," Leo growled.

There were more dead bodies than ninjas between him and his family. They'd catch up to him in just a few seconds, and then what? He didn't even want to think about it. The only way this could get any worse--

He screamed as the static burst back into his brain at such a high pitch that he couldn't stand, falling to his knees in shock. As he clamped his hands over his ears, he looked down at the blood dripping through the walkway's grid floor.

Black water filled the bottom of the hold, and that water was churning.

Hands grabbed his shoulders and pulled him away from the edge. At first he wondered why a foot ninja would bother trying to take him alive, but as he was pulled instead into an embrace, he realized one of his brothers must have reached him.

"Have to get out of here," he gasped. "Something's in the water..."

If they heard him or not, he didn't know. He couldn't hear anything as the static shifted higher and higher. When he managed to open his eyes again, he found his siblings around him with his master and April a little farther away. As they pushed back their enemies, they moved farther and farther away until whoever was holding him had to get up and fight the few stragglers caught between them. Leonardo didn't bother to try to run. Every route was blocked by family, and even if he could have run, his head hurt so much that he felt like throwing up. He wondered if they were scolding him as they fought. If so, he was glad he couldn't hear anything.

The ship suddenly lurched to one side and shuddered violently, throwing everyone to the left, then right. Something moved in a blur beside him and he looked up in time to see his little brother falling backwards over the rail.

He moved without thinking. He wasn't fast enough to catch his brother before he went over but he managed to slip under the railing and catch his brother's wrist. Too late, he remembered that he didn't have enough strength to pull him up. He couldn't even stop from being dragged towards the edge. Cold panic made him curl around one of the railing's vertical bars, but not only could he not bring himself back, he couldn't hold onto his brother. Only Michelangelo's own grip kept him from falling. Worse, he spotted a slice on Michelangelo's free arm. His brother wouldn't be able to climb up, either.

The static faded but didn't entirely disappear. One of his brothers called his name but he didn't dare look up. He shut his eyes. For some reason it was harder hanging onto the railing with them open. Without his sight, his hearing overcompensated. Over the static and the clatter of steel, he heard heavy footsteps and high pitched scratching as claws scraped against metal. Something roared not too far away and he heard everyone inside the room suddenly stop fighting.

"They're coming back," Leonardo whispered. "That's what the signal meant. It called them back."

But he knew it didn't just call the monsters outside. He opened his eyes, sure he would see an attack before he heard it, and amidst the churning waves beneath them, he saw the massive shoulders and tail of a white demon swimming in furious circles.

"Leo!" Michelangelo yelled. "Behind you!"

He shut his eyes. He couldn't move to protect himself and he wouldn't drop his brother. With any luck, he could take one, maybe two sword strikes, and even then perhaps his body wouldn't slip free.

Something whistled overhead and a foot ninja dropped beside him, probably from a Hamato clan throwing star. Before he'd wanted to outrun them. Now he wished his siblings would get to his side as fast as they could.

Raphael was right, he thought. Running just makes things harder.

The walkway started to shake. He didn't have to look up to know something big and heavy was coming, somehow maneuvering its body through the narrow corridors. It wouldn't be the biggest demon he'd ever faced, but prone on the floor as he was, it didn't have to be big.

At the same time, the demon beneath them finally got tired of waiting and decided to climb up. Leonardo opened his eyes and saw both his brother looking down and the demon trying to dig its claws into the thick metal walls. It took several tries before it could gain purchase, but it slowly started to pull itself up to the bloody bodies and the dangling turtle overhead.

If his brothers could have reached him, they would have by now. He needed a plan. A quick scan of the hold gave him one.

"Mike," Leonardo called down. "Michelangelo, look at me!"

After a few seconds, Michelangelo managed to look up at his brother. Even in the dim light, the fear in his eyes was all too obvious.

"Listen," Leonardo said. "You've got to brace yourself against the wall and get ready to jump."

"Are you nuts?" Michelangelo yelled. "You may have a death wish but I don't!"

"I won't let you die," Leonardo said. "But I can't get you up here. We've got to go down--"

"But Leo--"

"You have to trust me." He winced as Michelangelo squirmed, nearly wrenching his arm out of its socket.

"How do I know I can?"

"I'm suicidal," Leonardo said softly. "Not dishonorable."

Michelangelo stared at him for a moment, looked down at the demon coming closer, then angled his body enough that he could brace his legs against the wall. Leonardo tried to mask the pain shooting through his arm and waited for the demon to climb higher.

"Get ready to push off," Leonardo said. "And when you, do it as hard as you can."

"Are you sure about this?"

Behind him, something roared. The sound echoed through the chamber and reverberated in his chest. He had to trust his memory of how big a demon had to be to make that sound, as well as his memory of how small the ship's doors were. April screamed as the demon's teeth snapped shut so close that he could feel the wind rush past the back of his neck, but he smiled in satisfaction. He was right. It wasn't through the doorway yet. The demon beneath them crouched, ready to leap.

"Now!" he yelled, letting go of the rail.

Michelangelo pushed against the wall with all his strength, leaping out over the water. Leonardo followed, one hand already raising his sword. He turned in mid-air and barely missed the demon's lunge, slicing deep into its back before he fell out of reach. A second later, he hit the water. The cold shock knocked the breath out of him for a moment.

Hoping that it was an unwritten law that demons only lived one per pool, he swam back up to the surface and found Michelangelo nearby.

"There's a ladder," he said breathlessly, sheathing his sword. "It leads up to another door."

"Way ahead of you," Michelangelo said. He grabbed Leonardo's wrist and swam towards the half-submerged ladder. Bolted to the wall, it looked like a maintenance access route and only one of them could go at a time.

"After you, big bro'," he said.

There was no time to argue. Leonardo climbed up without sparing a glance back to see where the demon was. A moment's hesitation could kill both of them.

Although the ladder went all the way up to the walkway, Leonardo noticed another door positioned halfway there and within reach. With a rough push, it opened easily. He had no idea where it went but it didn't matter. His brothers could easily handle anything on those narrow ship passages and he had a clan leader to kill.

"Oh no you don't," Michelangelo yelled. "Get back here!"

Leonardo was sorely tempted to lose him in the dark corridor, but he couldn't leave his little brother alone. Slowing his pace, he kept just out of arm's reach until they came to another room. He stepped to one side and dodged his brother's arm, then turned and slammed the door. He didn't want to take a chance on screamers following behind them.

Michelangelo grabbed his wrist again with bruising strength. "I can't believe you did that," he said, breathing hard.

"Mike, that kind of hurts--"

"I don't care, I'm not letting go of you again." He ran his free hand over the walls, yanking Leonardo with him until he found a light switch and flipped it on.

Leonardo covered his eyes. "You should go back to Raphael," he said. "I've got to find whoever's trying to control us and kill them."

"'Us'?" Michelangelo repeated. "You're not one of those things--"

"All they have to do is find the right frequency and I am," he argued. "They only called everything back this time. Now that they're here--"

"You don't have to do this alone. Let me help--"

"No, it's too dangerous--"

"I don't care." Michelangelo clenched his hand into a fist out of frustration and took a few breaths to calm himself down. "Look, Raph said something when he was explaining things. I dunno if he even thought about it or if anyone else caught it, but...he said this wasn't your fault. He said you don't know how to handle it."

"What the hell--?"

"Shut up and listen for once! You always take care of us. Do you know how to take care of yourself?"

Leonardo froze.

"You never ask for help. And when we offered help, you never took it. I bet anything if this had happened to one of us, you would've found a way to take care of it, but it happened to you."

"Stop it."

"And you're not used to being the one who needs help--"

"Stop it!" Leonardo found his grip on his sword turning painful. With a shallow breath, he sheathed it again, whispering more to himself than to his sibling. "Damn. Nothing's changed. You're just as self-centered as ever."

"What--?"

"I took care of you three for years, no matter how hard you and Splinter made it for me. You think I didn't have to take care of myself during that time? I would've broken down a hell of a lot earlier--"

"But Leo, it's like you're building walls to keep everyone else out."

"Those walls are what kept me up for so long," Leonardo snapped. "They kept out every insult, every time you three treated me like a task master when I was just doing what Splinter ordered, every time he told me to do something that'd make you sick of me."

Michelangelo looked stricken and his hand slipped from his brother's. "We never--"

"Never ran when I needed help working on something? Never dodged practice? Never tried to get me in trouble with Splinter?"

No answer. Leonardo almost asked if he was all right, but forced himself to stay quiet. This wasn't the place to argue about family.

He turned his back and listened to the room, figuring out where the next door was. Faint shrieks echoed in the corridor they'd come from. Screamers had made their way through the ship, then.

"Sounds like I can't leave you here."

Maybe he would find a place he could drop him off farther in. No doubt his family would be on his heels. With a little luck, he could cross their path, leave his brother in their way, and move on before any of them noticed what he was doing.

"Did he hurt you?"

"What?" He blinked.

"Splinter, did he hurt you?" Michelangelo asked, knowing how hard Splinter's cane could be.

Leonardo shook his head. "He never touched me."

"Then...what'd he say?"

A shrug. "Just reminded me how worthless I am." When he heard his little brother's gasp, he sighed and lowered his head. Hurting his sibling was easy but he hated himself for doing it. "He doesn't talk to you like he does to me."

"What do you mean?"

He didn't have time for this. He had enemies to kill. But he knew his sibling well enough to know that there was no way of getting around it. Mike always had a way of worming things out of his brothers.

"I'll explain on the way," he said, leading him out and back into the ship. At the very least, it would keep him talking until the static hit just the right frequency. "Just promise me one thing."

"Depends on what it is."

"If I suddenly stop talking or moving, don't try to get my attention. Just run."

Michelangelo frowned. "I don't believe you'll hurt me."

"See?" Leonardo said. "Still relying on me to take care of you."

TBC...