Donnie really didn't want to be out in the city. Not now, not ever. But of course, he had no choice. Just like he had no choice in anything he did anymore. He slept, woke up, ate, trained, breathed and spoke under heavy-set regulations that let him feeling more robot than terrapin.
He should have been happy to get out of the labs and the opressive cold of the training rooms. Shredder hadn't let him leave his lair for an entire year after he started to work for him, helping plan and build gadgets and weapons used agaisnt the very turtles he once called his brothers (of course, not without loop holes for them to win agaisnt. Subtle ones, thank you very much. Baxter wasn't as smart as he liked to think.) But every once in a while, he would be given the privelege to go outside if he was good. It was always a low-grade job, usually in tandem with the Purple Dragons. Something Don couldn't fuck up or sabatoge without too many repercussions. Shredder would never fully trust him.
The first time he saw the sky again, Donnie had been... well, not happy, but definetly excited. He tagged along with the foot ninja and one of the Shredder's personal lap dogs: Karai (not that she was mean or anything, but she was a bit of a drag to be around). Once again, it was a simple job. Help the purple dragons with a weapons haul and transport it safely across the city to the docks. They had to meet up with a van at an abandoned warehouse (originality was top priority around here) and traveled there by foot. Karai led the large group of ten or so black clad ninja. Don wore the same get-up too, most of his green skin clothes in the same dark and red patterns he once stained with blood.
His bo had been snapped in half by the shredder himself and he had been gifted with what the man assumed were lowly weapons for a lowly creature: two kamas. Basically short sickles that fit into both his palms with what had once been unfamilair and clumsy weight. Now, he knew them as well as he had his precious bo. He hated them. They clicked against his hips as he jumped to the rooftop near the designated warehouse. Karai held up a fist and everyone fell in behind her. Don crossed his arms, brunting the worst of the wind. It had picked up severly in the last half hour and the city was filled with the low howl of the breeze.
A preminition of bad things to come, Don thought wearily.
It's not like he didn't expect three unwelcome visitors to appear tonight. Everytime he came out into the open, they somehow knew. They kept their ears open for any chance they could to confront him. Don sighed and Karai shot him a glare. She knew just as well as he did what would happen. She hated "babysitting jobs" like this, but Shredder insisted. Don assumed the metal-sheathed behemoth just liked making him suffer.
"Donatello," Karai began, accent thick, resolve booming. "Stay here with unit B. Should any guests appear, you know what to do. Unit A, follow." She paused before jumping from the ledge, a pitiying glance over her shoulder. "Do steel yourself, turtle. I don't want a repeat of last time." Then she was gone, and Donnie was left with a group of five, the memories of last time flooding his head. He snapped the flood gates closed and watched the sky line and the van below. The purple dragons were already busy hauling heavy, wooden boxes into the back of a non-descript white van. Karai didn't do lifting. She just barked orders and had scouts secure the permiter. She was anxious to see one of their guests tonight. He always made her anxious.
And then he saw it. A glint in the dark way out on the roof of a nearby building. He thought about ignoring it and playing dumb. But then, he'd only be avoiding the inevitable. He looked to one of the ninja, nodded his head in the direction of the seemingly imagined shadow and said, "they're here."
Karai was alerted by her ear piece and he saw her immediatly order the dragons and her team to work faster, pretending she didn't know. Don waited another few minutes and then he saw her draw her swords. A shadow fell from the sky and steel clashed agaisnt steel. Gunshots rung out and the shadow was gone. Don turned just in time to see another one crouching near the back of his building's roof, watching with a sai glinting in his hands and a grin sprawled over his face. It wasn't a happy one. Not by a long shot.
"Well hey, if it isn't the traitor," Rapheal stood up to his full height, all the ninja immeditaly descending upon him.
Raph, the powerhouse he was, killed two of them with a furious sweep of his arm and a few well placed strikes of his pommel. Blood flew from throats and the rest circled around him, wary. Don would have been appalled at the bloodshed only a year ago. Karai had been shocked too, when Leonardo, who he could hear making a commotion along with Mikey on the street, had picked up the messy habit. Mikey still retained some sembelance of his father's strict rule to only kill out of neccessity. Raph and Leo decided it was necessary when they officially disowned Don.
Said Don withdrew his two kamas. He hated fighted Raph. It wasn't like their old days sparring. It wasn't even like training with Shredder's personal guard or Karai on one of her off days. It was scarier than that. Don's face stayed impassive, as difficult as it was to mantain, when Raph killed two more ninja and pointed a bloody sai at him.
"What, you coward?!" He shouted. "Not gonna help your little friends, huh?! Jsut gonna sit there and let them do all the work."
There was one ninja left. Poor guy looked stricken between pursuing Raph and fleeing. Don sighed, rolled his shoulders in an attempt to soothe the tension in his muscles. When he was done, the last ninja was dead at Raph's feet and the red-banded terrapin was watching him with steely eyes and bared teeth.
"One on one, eh? Just like old time, waddya say?" There was a strain in Raph's voice. There always was. Don couldn't remeber what he sounded like without it.
Before Don could answer, there was a resounding boom! that richoted from the street. The van, Don's mind supplied unhelpfully. He felt heat at it back, but wasn't dumb enough to turn and watch the high-rising flames. He did hesitate though, and Rapheal tried to slide himself and his sai into Don's side. Don side-stepped and dodged. He couldn't do much else. Rapheal was on his ass like glue and the breath of the blades sliced too close to his skin with each step backwards. Before he hit the ledge, he ducked and clipped Rapheal agaisnt his bicep, just enough to draw blood and throw him off balance. Then he was down in the alley, jumping down the straiwell that shook agaisnt his weight and landing softly on the cold, aspahlt below. Rapheal was following quickly behind and Don took a moment to gain his breath before the fighting started again.
It was mindless exertion. Don was cut several times along his carpace and once in the shoulder. Blood gushed heavily from that particular wound and Rapheal's eyes had lit up with something that made his stomach flip under the pain. He was getting slower. Antoher cut scraped his neck - and holy shit, was Raph actually trying to kill him?! The thought wasn't so far-fetched, no that he thought about...
Don ducked and rolled and kicked Rapheal's right knee out from under him. It gave him enough time to jam his pommel into the other turtle's temple and leave him sprawled on the ground, already clawing his way back to his feet with a furious snarl. Don fled for the streets where Karai was still going at it with Leo. Mikey was no where to be seen, but purple dragons littered the street. Dead, red seeping from their bodies and merging like a lake. The moon shone silver against it and it almost looked pretty.
"You're dead, you sonofabitch!"
Don turned just in time to catch Raph's desceding sais with his curved blades - and oh, look at that, the sharp edges were really close to sliding into his skull. His arms trembled and ached. He ground his teeth together, snorting through his nostrils. Wow, this was really truning out to be a bad night.
And then it was over. Leonardo's voice broke out through the tension and Don couldn't quite catch what he said, but Raph drew back and slammed his foot into Don's carpace. When Don next looked up, they were all gone, and Karai and a few survivors were left amid the wreckage, no other turtle in sight. The woman was cut up and bleeding. She held herself, despite the exauhstion she must be feeling, and catch his eyes with a tired glare. They both looked at the van - up in flames and burning with their cargo.
Don hadn't expected the night to turn out any other way.