Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Fan Fiction ❯ Bad Places III: Ruin ❯ Chapter 12

Part 12

When it became obvious that Leonardo was gone, Raphael stopped yelling and leaned on the door, sighing angrily. Beside him, Michelangelo's breathing came in short, fast bursts. Raphael half-smiled. Leonardo would've known how to comfort his sibling. He'd seen him do it before with a simple touch and a reassurance, but Raphael wasn't used to comforting others.

Leo knows how to put us together, he thought. And he knows how to break us apart, too.

"I don't get it," Donatello said. "Why is he doing this?"

"Because he's scared," Mike said. He caught his breath and stood straight, glancing over his shoulder at him. "I don't care what he says, he doesn't know how to take care of himself. And I know why, too."

Even Raphael took a step back when he saw the look in his little brother's eyes as Michelangelo stared at their master. He didn't have to guess what Leonardo had said to make Mike so angry. Now that he expected to die, Leonardo didn't seem to be holding back much of the truth.

"You taught him to be like this," Michelangelo accused Splinter. "You never gave him a chance to be anything else."

Bowing his head in acceptance, Splinter did not try to deny any of it. "I did what I thought necessary to protect you four."

"At the cost of our big brother!"

"Michelangelo," Splinter started. "If your brother had not become what he is, do you honestly believe any of us would still be alive?"

"Of course," Mike snapped. "We're all good fighters."

"There is more to survival than simply fighting well," Splinter said. "Tactics paired with strategy, psychological understanding, and above all, constant anticipation of attack. There is a reason you always left the dueling against Saki to your elder brother."

"'Constant anticipation of attack'," Donatello echoed. "That's just another way to say paranoia."

"And that paranoia is a safeguard," Splinter said. "That is the reason we often staggered our meditations, so that I would be alert whenever he needed to relax his mind and focus inward instead of on outward threats."

"Yeah, that worked so well," Michelangelo grumbled.

"Guys," April finally broke in. "We're in foot clan ship surrounded by monsters. Can we argue about this later?"

"And we will argue about it later," Raphael promised. "But you're right. We gotta find Leo first."

With one final glare at his master, Michelangelo walked past him and stayed next to April as they all headed deeper into the ship. They all expected more ninja to attack, but as time passed and they met no one, they started to wonder if here were any ninja left to face.

"Think big brother might've killed 'em all?" Michelangelo asked.

"Maybe," Raphael answered. "But we would've been finding bodies by now."

"The ship didn't look nearly this big on the outside," April whispered.

"There aren't that many rooms inside," Donatello said. "Whoever built it probably stripped out most of the inner structure and replaced it with all these walkways. Probably to give the monsters a maze to keep them busy in case they got loose."

"Is that why we haven't seen any yet?" Mike asked.

"Don't jinx it," Raphael said.

Suddenly April came to a stop, raising her hands in front of her. "Do you feel that?"

"Feel what?" Mike asked, but then he noticed the prickling sensation all over his skin. "Whoa, what the heck is that?"

"Static," Donatello said. "It's strong down here despite all the metal blocking the signal. Someone's broadcasting again."

"Over the city?" Raphael asked. "Or just in here?"

"No way to tell," Donatello said. "But if all the monsters are inside--"

At first the sounds were faint, rhythmic scratches and thumps from somewhere far away, the hungry shrieks of monsters being told that they were hungry. With each passing second, the noises grew louder into a dull roar rushing towards them like a huge wave. Staring behind themselves, they noticed that they had passed several open doorways that all started to shake with the heavy vibrations of something running closer.

"Let's move," Raphael said, leading them away from the door and back down the corridor, taking another route away from the howling and scraping. Flashbacks of the game came to him, hallways covered in screamers so that he had to stand still and fight, and he wished his brother wasn't half-mad and alone in the ship.

"Do you think it's affecting Leonardo, too?" Donatello asked as they ran, yelling over the noise.

"Probably," he admitted. "Until we get it shut off, we have to assume he'll attack us, too."

By now the roaring was so loud it was hard to hear each other. The corridor ended in another door and he grabbed it and swung it open, waiting until they were all inside before slamming it shut and giving the lock a spin. The sound faded but he didn't hear anything coming near the door. The echoes made it impossible to tell where anything was.

"Ah, the turtles," came a familiar voice. "It seems you'll get to see my greatest triumph before I get to watch your greatest defeat."

Raphael turned, ready for a fight. Instead he nearly dropped his sais in shock. The voice belonged to Stockman, true, but Stockman's face appeared on a large computer monitor on the other side of the large room. On the console instead of a keyboard lay a human brain in a protective plastic case with wires coming out at all angles.

"Baxter," April said, blinking several times to make sure she wasn't seeing things. "You've lost weight."

Stockman's face scowled at them. "Your sword-wielding friend cost me my body, but no matter. Once again my genius overcomes your pathetic brute force. My brain was safeguarded from his poison by my brilliant robotic engineering and now I'm free to complete my experiments."

"I got a better idea," Michelangelo said. "Let's play soccer. You can be the ball."

"You think I'm defenseless?" Stockman laughed. "I have allies this time, powerful allies!"

"You mean your ugly eating machines?" Raphael asked.

"He means me."

From a darkened doorway next to Stockman's computer came a woman dressed in a foot clan uniform, two swords on her back. Raphael tilted his head as he looked at her. She walked the way his brother did when he knew he had to kill someone, intent and wary at the same time. He didn't recognize her, but he recognized the way that she moved and knew that she was a real threat.

"I am Karai," she said. "Adopted daughter of Oroku Saki and new leader of the--"

"Hey, sweetheart," he snapped, "we're kinda busy here. Go run along and let the men talk, huh?"

The taunt had the desired effect. She snarled and drew her sword, losing some of her focus in anger. "You wretched--disgusting little--I'll have your head on a pike outside my headquarters!"

Raphael flipped his sais into a ready position. If he had to fight her, he'd rather face her pissed off than cool and collected. To his disappointment, however, she did not immediately charge him. After a few seconds he realized how unlikely that would have been, even if he hadn't been backed up by his family.

"To me, my loyal clan!" Karai called out, looking expectantly at the door she'd just come from. Raphael felt a sinking sensation in his stomach as he turned to face yet another bunch of ninja, but as the seconds passed and no one appeared, Karai looked in confusion down the dark corridor.

A head, still masked but bleeding profusely from its severed stump, rolled out and came to a stop at her feet. She gasped and took a step back, not noticing how her enemies recoiled, too. A second head followed, and a moment later Leonardo stepped into view with two dripping swords and blood splattered across his arms.

Breathing a sigh of relief that his brother didn't seem animalistic, Raphael recognized the weary determination in his brother's eyes. No doubt he was feeling the effects of whatever Stockman was broadcasting, occasionally shaking his head to clear it, but he wasn't as far gone as after the attack in the lair. Leonardo glanced at him once, not meeting his eyes before looking back at the floor.

"Guess I took the route with all the ninjas," he muttered more to himself than anyone else.

"My men," Karai whispered, staring at the blood and in shock that one turtle had killed so many.

"Is she the only one left?" Raphael asked his brother. He could save his anger for later. Right now they had to keep the family safe.

Leonardo nodded once. "Her and--" He paused and took a second look at the monitor. He hadn't paid attention to it when he walked in, thinking it was just an ordinary computer screen. "Is that--?"

"Thought you had destroyed me?" Stockman began boasting again. "You only managed to destroy my body, but now my genius--"

"Hope he's got an off switch," Leonardo said to himself, but he wasn't looking at Stockman anymore. Donatello always handled computers. April and Splinter would cover his back while he worked, and Raphael and Michelangelo would mop up any ninja that he'd missed. Big brother's always killed the leader.

With Stockman's voice providing the background noise that even sounded a bit like a rhythmic beat, Leonardo began walking towards Karai, who drew her own swords.

Unlike samurai who stood waiting for the first move, they began to circle, eyeing each other for the slightest weakness. Karai saw many. His right hand, his dominant sword hand, trembled from overexertion and the gouge near his throat, an older injury now bleeding again. He also moved with a slight limp that became more apparent as she watched. By the time they were each on the opposite side of the room from where they'd started, she was certain she would win with a few quick strikes.

Doing his best to ignore his family's stare, Leonardo was also sure he would win. Although he wished he wasn't so battered, he knew his injuries camouflaged his style. She would attack thinking only about the blood and not about his swords. And he already knew that she led with her right, telegraphing all her movements with her right leg.

When she lunged with a cry supposed to startle him, he sidestepped, ducking her swing and nearly ending the fight as he turned with a slice that only grazed the back of her neck, missing only because she stumbled and rolled when she didn't make contact.

"See, Mike," Raphael whispered, unable to stop himself. "That's why we practice falling and rolling."

Michelangelo didn't seem to hear him. In every fight they'd ever been through, he always felt the confidence of a little brother watching his big brother win against any opponent he went up against. Even under the influence of his mutating genetics, Leonardo always won. And he'd nearly decapitated this woman in one hit. Mike knew he should feel confident, and he wasn't sure why he didn't until Karai began backing towards the open hatch.

If she ran, his brother would follow. If they couldn't keep up, if they lost sight of him before he killed Karai, then he would simply keep running. If this thing twisting inside Leonardo's brain making him think he might kill his family wasn't stopped and Leonardo managed to stay out of their reach until he could commit suicide, then they would lose their big brother.

Mike twisted his nunchucks in his hands. The real fight wasn't between Leonardo and Karai.

Leonardo was dueling his own family. And Mike knew Leonardo always won.

TBC...