Red Turtle, Purple Dragon
"Can we get on with this?" The red-masked turtle grunted.
"Quiet, we need to hear if this connects to the Shredder." Leo whispered angrily. Raph rolled his eyes.
"Not everything those purple morons do is related to Shredder." Leo ignored his brother's remark and turned to Donnie.
"Don, what are they saying?" He asked. Donatello was currently hooked up to a spy roach, listening in on the Purple Dragons' meeting.
"Just a deal going down at the docks tomorrow." The taller turtle said.
"Didn't we already know that?" Mikey questioned, hanging upside down since he was bored.
"Exactly. No reason to be here. Let's go." Raphael made to leave, before yells from bellow sounded as the meeting broke up.
"Donnie, what changed?" Leo snapped, and Donnie fiddled with the playback controls.
"They left and they saw some 'easy pickings'." He answered hurriedly.
"Sweet, action!" Mikey hopped into the air, landing cat-like on his feet. Then he proceeded to jump from the roof into the fray. Leo and Donnie looked on in disbelief as Raph shrugged.
"Well, I'm with stupid." He followed Mikey. Leo and Donnie also pursued the orange-masked turtle.
Raph was having fun. They had saved the mugging victims easily and now the dragons were out to play. There were nearly a hundred, but with their inexperience with real fighting, they were no match. Soon, Raph had just one to face.
"And then there was one." Raph smirked, before the dragon gave a cruel laugh.
"Cute. How long did that one take to write?" The figure crooked a finger tauntingly and Raph growled. He charged, only to find no one there. From behind he heard a faint laugh before he was disarmed, sais clattering to the pavement.
"Now we can fight fair." The voice bantered, before delivering a sweeping kick to his legs. The turtle easily kept his balance, countering with a flip and a kick of his own.
"It wouldn't be fair unless I had both my hands behind my back. And even then you couldn't win." He jeered at the dragon.
"Someone's confident." The figure spat before launching to punch the turtle in the lower part of his plastron. Raph was winded enough to allow the figure to deliver another punch to the head before the turtle could retaliate.
"Tell you what: give up now, and I won't pound you into the ground. As much." The turtle sneered hard at the dragon.
"Counter offer: you surrender, and I let you live."
"Not gonna happen." The turtle replied.
"Good to know you're comfortable with death, then." In the act of wiping at the face, the figure's hood came off, revealing a…girl?
"What the-I'm fighting a girl?" Raph stammered, and the dragon girl smirked.
"Losing to one, really. But here's your parting gift." She smiled before delivering another kick to his gut, making him stumble, before adding a series of punches to his stomach. The ninja was aware enough to shove her away, but not until after acquiring some impressive bruising.
The girl hit the pavement hard and glared up at him, but she seemed to notice something behind her and didn't get up.
"Raph, come on." Mikey called. His brothers had already won their fights. Raph turned to the girl again, but she was gone. He hurriedly climbed to the roof after the turtles.
The girl fled the battle scene, hiding in an alleyway across town. Her bruises stung, and she had a few cuts from hitting the pavement, but she would live. She winced as she contemplated if this was the best plan.
Tegan sighed, before hearing a noise above her. She scrambled to hide, but nothing happened. She gave a humorless laugh before sitting down, pulling back her sleeves, and examining her hands.
The cuts were mostly shallow, but there was one across the palm of her left hand that was bleeding like crazy. She tore off the hem of her worn skirt and started to wrap it.
"That isn't very sanitary." A voice in the shadows quipped.
"I'm gonna go think a while. You guys go ahead." Raph said.
"Don't hurt yourself." Leo shot back before he and the others slid into the lair.
Raph leapt from rooftop to rooftop, anywhere that wasn't dragon headquarters. He couldn't get the image of the girl out of his mind.
She had rich brown hair that stopped at her shoulders, and she had a small half-moon scar on her left cheek. Her eyes had looked like the sea during a storm, grey and brooding.
Raph shook his head as his carless thinking caused him to land heavily on a fire escape. Just as he meant to move on, he heard an already familiar laugh below him. He looked to see the girl he had fought earlier tending to her wounds. He felt a pang of regret at seeing the mean-looking slice he had given her hand.
He watched her rip off a part of her grubby clothes to wrap it and couldn't hold back his comment.
"That isn't very sanitary." He immediately wished he hadn't said anything.
For her part, when she spotted him, she didn't yell. She merely glared, but he could see a slight flash of fear in her eyes.
"Back again? Fine, but I'll warn you, I won't go easy on you this time." She said, shakily standing to her feet. Raph watched in amusement; she certainly was brave, if a bit crazy, to try facing him twice. He climbed down and she tensed, waiting.
"Give me your hand." He said, hopefully not unkindly. She glanced at him warily.
"Look, cleaner wrapping. See?" He took off his own fighting tape and offered it to her. She glanced at the outstretched hand and sat down against the wall. She met his eyes and nodded, offering her injured appendage.
"You're one of the vigilantes?" She questioned him.
"Yeah. And you're a dragon." He took her small hand in his and started working, giving sympathetic glances when she winced.
"Wrong on that one." She replied, before letting out a hiss of pain.
"Hmm?" Was all he replied with, not wanting to scare her away.
"You ever notice all the ink dragons wear?" She gestured with her good hand. "All those tattoos have secret meanings, and every dragon has at least one. I have two, you can see one there." She nodded to her hand in his, and Raphael looked to find a small bracelet design encircling her wrist.
"I have one on each. You know what they mean? Prisoner." She spat, not meeting his eyes.
"So I had a plan for tonight. I pick a fight with a vigilante, but I come out of it conscious, unlike everyone else. Then I have a chance to slip away. I didn't plan on getting so roughed up, thanks for that by the way." She joked, and Raph smirked up at her.
"Anytime. Thank you for some impressive bruises. I usually come away unscathed." The turtle replied smoothly, making the girl smile.
"Well, that's it." The turtle finished his first aid and looked at her searchingly before asking a question.
"Do you really want out?"
Tegan couldn't believe it. Was he an idiot? Of course she wanted out of the horrid gang.
She had been introduced to the lifestyle at seven. Her mother had been a frequent customer of the dragons in pursuit of recreational substances, and soon had fallen into dept. As final payment, she had offered her daughter. The dragons had her killed three months later when she couldn't pay again.
First, she had learned to pick pockets. Then, she had been used as bait for robberies. Now, at fifteen, they figured she was the perfect age to either start pushing their goods or hers. She had managed to overhear this a week ago, and the flimsy plan had been hatched.
Now, a turtle, sworn enemy to her makeshift family, was offering help. She wasn't about to pass up a chance at freedom.
"You bet your shell. Where do we start?" She grinned at him and he glanced at her before standing up and pulling her along behind him. He led her to a manhole cover, before pulling it aside and dropping down.
"You coming?" He called up, and Tegan took one last glance at the moon before following the turtle into darkness.