Chaos...that was the feeling that I was vaguely aware of, the last thing that my muddled mind sort of remembered. There was shouting, but who had been shouting and what they were saying was lost on me. What was going on? I remembered fragments of images and snippets of sound that all slipped away too fast for my sluggish brain to try to hold onto long enough to make any sense of it. Pushing...I remembered pushing something...someone, maybe? There was a sense of duty with that wisp of memory, of fierce protectiveness that teased at a form or face to go with the memory before it too faded away only to be replaced with a searing flash of pain.

It was quiet now, or it seemed quiet, and that snapped my brain back into focus as there was something very wrong with that thought. It shouldn't be this quiet, I didn't know why exactly the current silence felt wrong, it just...it just shouldn't be that way. I had to move, I had to get up, I had to make sure...make sure...why was it so hard to remember?! What was so important that I had to get up and move? I shifted in preparation to stand only to have my breath catch at the pain such a slight movement caused. My body begged me to lay still but instinct irrationally screamed at me to move and so I tried again. This time forcing myself until I awkwardly managed to sit up, the effort quickening my breathing to quiet pants of pain as I squinted my eyes open. What small victory was felt with that accomplishment quickly vanished as the world suddenly spun and I squeezed my eyes closed against it once more, waiting and praying for the wave of dizziness and nausea to pass. After a few moments the feeling had faded enough to be tolerable and I opened my eyes again to try and see where I was. Looking around, slowly, I couldn't help the surprise that widened my eyes as I realized I was on a rooftop….a rooftop? Out in the open? But how had I gotten here and why? I may not remember much but I was most definitely NOT on a rooftop before...well before the part that I frustratingly cannot seem to remember!

The instinct to get moving resurfaced with double the intensity at how exposed I felt out here and with a pain filled, trembling effort I managed to get my left leg underneath me so I could stand. As I tried to get up, my right leg would not only refuse to respond but would also send a shock of pain at the attempt. The sudden surprise and intensity of it had me pitching forwards to crash against a nearby cooling unit with a hollow thud, the impact doing absolutely nothing for my already dizzy and aching head. Without much of a choice, I slid down along the cold metal surface until I was once again sitting, well 'sitting' might be too formal a word for how my battered body had simply crumpled on itself. Either way, I had sat on something mildly soft and extremely cold. Though that only lasted a moment as whatever it was slowly gave way beneath me and I sunk into a blanket of iciness on the rooftop. I squinted my eyes open just enough to hazard a look at myself, and what I saw made me hurriedly close my eyes once more. There were splatters and drops of red against what looked like a thick white blanket. It didn't make sense, a blanket way out on top of a roof but for now my confusion was eagerly dismissed as the freezing blanket brought with it a soothing numbness to my leg. Ever so carefully, I leaned my head back against the cooling unit that propped me up before closing my eyes once more, sluggishly trying to convince myself that I just needed a minute to re-group. Just a minute to gather my strength and then...then I would try to move again.


Leonardo ran silently along the rooftops, nothing more than a flicker of shadow as he jumped over the gaps between the buildings. It was the last leg of his patrol route and it had been a quiet night so far, at least on his side of the city. Then again with the latest near record snow fall who would want to be out here anyways? As it was, he and his brothers didn't want to be out here now but the criminal elements of the city didn't stop on account of snow. Plus, doing the nightly patrols helped him and his brothers fight off the natural instinct of their bodies to be lethargic and stave off the risk of slipping into mild, short bouts of hibernation. Granted rooftop jumping on ice and snow carried its own dangers but they had learned to deal with it for the most part as the seasons came and went. The best adjustment for the snow they had done was to have Donatello do his patrol in the BattleShell. Yes, it limited the genius turtle's actual patrol to available streets, but it allowed for the rest of the brothers to have somewhere safe to take a break and warm up should any of them need it, as well as mobile medical assistance.

It should have been a quiet patrol for everyone considering the weather but 'turtle luck', as Raphael liked to call it, always seemed to find a way. On any typical night, Leonardo could count on at least one entertaining tale from Michelangelo; usually about something the youngest of the brothers had found interesting or some new move the over-energetic turtle had managed to cobble together. This was in stark contrast to reports from Donatello which were usually fairly short and to the point, unless there was a new piece of equipment the genius turtle had managed to find and salvage along his patrol route. Then his excitement was a force to be reckoned with...assuming you could follow half of what the purple masked brother said. Then there was Raphael. His reports...well...suffice it to say that trouble always seemed to find his short-tempered brother, or maybe it was the other way around? Either way, Raphael's reports for the night usually had to be pulled out of the red-masked turtle one reluctant word at a time...or in a shouted bout of temper depending on how the night went.

A splash of vivid color that was wildly out of place against a backdrop of white caught his attention, pulling him out of his thoughts and have him skidding to a stop before turning so he could cautiously walk over to investigate. As he made his way over, he made sure to pull his hat down and his scarf up to keep as much of his face hidden as he could. There really wasn't much he could do about the added bulk the winter jacket put on his form, especially when it had to account for and attempt to conceal his katanas. The outfit was a necessary evil against the biting cold, but it did have its uses when it came to concealing the blue masked turtle from wandering eyes. Though as Leonardo approached the figure slumped in the snowbank accumulated against a now unused cooling unit, he had a feeling that being seen was something he didn't have to worry about for the moment. Especially as he realized that the splash of color that had caught his attention was blood.