Writer's note: Don't own the turtles. Duh. Been forgetting to put this in. I just like making them suffer. :) Also, want to know what happened to Mike and Raph at the start of this section? Read New Enemies New Allies :P It's in the crossover section.

Raph coughed and his flash-reddened eyes flashed daggers at Mikey. When he could talk, it was a rougher growl than normal. "That. Was too close. Never do that again."
"Aww, where's your sense of fun? Mikey asked, smiling despite the stars dancing in front of his eyes from the flash bomb, or the terror caused when he realized that bearded man was bearing down on them with that sword, and he couldn't see well enough to fight. That's over now, and it's obvious whiskers wasn't going to follow. "Where's your sense of decency?"
"What's so decent about helping that guy out? He looked like he was able to handle himself."
"But, those were the foot. What are they doing anyway? Shred heads been shredded."
Raph frowned and rubbed his eyes to clear them of the flash's affects. "Don't know. But Karia has to be up to something."
"You mean Leo's girlfriend?" Mikey asked coyly.
"You mean our sister!" Raph barked. "Besides, yuck. Don't get sappy, gag-face."
"I got a cute endearing face." Mikey pouted.

"Well, we better let Leo know what we ran into." Raph said, rolling his eyes at his younger brother's antics. "He may be able to figure this out better. He knows her sick little mind better than we do."

"Did you see those...whatchamacallems" Mikey's voice rang out as Raph took off in a jog. "And I thought you were ugly!"
"Shut it!"
"Okay, okay, chill Bro! I was just teasing." Mikey grinned , catching up with Raph easily. Reaching over, he patted his shoulder. "Your it, Dude!" Laughing he sprinted away, leaving a fuming Raph in the wake. "Grow up, already!"

Raph shook his head, as he saw Mikey vanish around a bend. He had to admire the bugger for how fast he could run. He was always the fastest runner among them. Almost against his will, Raph's mind flashed to a time, when they had to deal with those funky mushrooms that squirted fear spores like a new kool-aid. He remembered finding out just how fast Mikey can go if pushed to his fastest. He remembered the look of fear that drove him. He remembered…

What he didn't know was Mikey was remembering the same thing as he ran...he started running faster, as fast as he could. He ran until his sides ached…

Mikey Ran. He ran faster, then faster until he was running as fast as he could. He ran until his sides ached. He ran until his legs trembled so hard from weariness that he could barely but one foot in front of the other. He ran until his vision started fading in and out, and his surroundings tilted in a bizarre and nauseating way. He ran until he could literally run no longer, and still It followed him. It followed at his heels, neither faster nor slower, and never once did it stop.

Mikey remembered when this race away from a monster first started, It was not behind him. He was running from a Squirreloid, one that sounded kind of like Raph, and kept hitting him over the head. It was both terrifying and confusing. It was terrifying confusing!

When he ran into the dead end, he was well on his way to freaking. But then he heard something behind him. Raph. Wimpering, and screaming for something to go away, like he was scared for his life. Turning, he faced the squirreloid, and yelled. "You leave my bro alone! Or I'll go all Raph on ya, Son! Yeah! That's right! I said it! How you like that Popcorn!"

The squirreloid seemed to shrink somehow under Mikey's harsh words, and stepped back. Mikey saw it, and grinned. "You ain't so tough without your friends, now are ya? Who afraid of you? No one is afraid of you!"

And the squirreloid faded away like smoke. Mikey stared at the spot, then he raised both hands in victory. "All right! I showed them cracked nuts who's in charge, dawgs!"

But then something hit him on the head again. And again. opening his eyes in surprise, he yelped. The Sqquirreloid was gone, but Raph was in his spot. And he was thwacking him over the head with his fists, with a wild crazy look in his eyes that Mikey did not care for one tiny bit. Screaming in an uncomfortably high-pitched voice, he dodged out of the way, just in time for Raph to pull out his sias and start jabbing where he was a mere second ago. "Raph, it's me! Mikey! Your cuddly favorite bro! Stop trying to kill me!"

Raph growled and charged, with a single-minded expression on his face that Mikey seen on his face in a fight. Only difference was it's normally at someone they both fighting. "Bro, you're seriously freaking me out here!"

He had managed to dodge everything so far, but he was tired. And soon, he had something else to worry about. He noticed as he tried hard not to be killed by his brother, that his brother's shadow seemed to get larger and larger. Then, in a way that almost surprised him too much to remember to dodge the pointy sais, it managed to free itself from Raph's feet, and shook itself off. Thankfully, Mikey didn't forget Raph completely, and managed to dodge him enough to have the sai only dig a narrow groove across his plastron. It hurt, but it didn't kill. Jumping over Raph, Mikey turned and faced the shadow again, with a sick fascination he barely understood. The squirreloid freaked him out. Psyco Raph left him freaked out and scarred for his life. But what the shadow was slowly becoming froze the breath in his throat and almost robbed him of the will to live right then and there. There was nothing about it that should cause such a response. It was a shadow, admittedly one that was dark as pitch and seemed to suck all light into it. Yet the sight of it...of It! Was enough to cause him to forget even Crazy Killer Raph, and bolt for the nearest sewer tunnel. He left Raph yelling something about cockroaches, and ran and ran until he could not run anymore.
The whole time, the shadow, the Nothing, followed in his wake. Never fast enough to overtake him. Never slow enough to leave behind. It was always there, cold as death, present as air.

At last, he fell from sheer exhaustion. And the shadow...the darkness...the terrible Nothing enveloped him completely.

Raph laughed as the overgrown cockroach turned tail and ran before his fierce fighting, down a dark tunnel. "HA! He screamed after him. "That's right, you better run, roach! That's round four, sucka! Raphael four, Mega Roach Zero! Go cry to ya momma! You nothing!"

the victory seemed to take the last of his fear with him, and the cockroaches vanished from sight. What he saw instead confused Raph. "What, Mikey? Where is that nut going?" he asked himself as he saw Mikey vanish around the bend of the pipe, at a dead run.

Breaking out into a sprint, he raced after his brother, calling out, "Mikey? Stop running knucklehead!"

Ten minutes into the chaise, Raph was swearing profusely under his breath. They all knew Mikey was the fastest of them, but this?! He almost never even saw him, and Raph was going at a dead run. IF he was going as fast as all get out, how in the world did Mikey manage to stay so far ahead of him? The only reason he knew he was going in the right direction was the sound of splashing or footfalls ahead, and on really long stretches of tunnel, he would catch a glimpse of fleeing green.

"When I catch him, I swear, I'm going to beat him senseless. What the shell is he doing?"

Twenty minutes passed. An hour. Then something new happened. The footfalls had been rather steady ahead of him the whole time. Now, they stopped. And the absence of the sound made Raph start to worry. His stomach began to tie themselves in knots.

Grateful that his stamina is better than Mikey's at least, Raph pushed past his exhaustion and made himself go as fast as he could go. He didn't even give himself enough time to wonder at his exhaustion. He should have not been so tired after an hour or so of running.

Turning the corner sharply, and nearly tripped over Mikey, as he laid half-submerged in the pool of stagnant water.

Raph quickly knelt over and flipped Mikey over on his back. "Come on...Be okay.." Raph growled, quickly reaching over to check his pulse at the neck. "Don't do this to me! Be okay! Or...Or I'll smack the green off you! I..I mean it!"

He felt wave after wave of panic wash over him. His hand shook so hard, that he was at first unable to even keep his finger on Mikey's neck long enough to see if he had a pulse. Swearing loudly at himself, he tried again. For a long moment, he felt no pulse, He felt nothing but rapidly chilling skin. His terror and grief built more, and he was about to jump back, certain he had somehow managed to kill his baby brother. Getting desperate, he reached up and slapped his cheek. The first time was fairly light. The second was much harder. He was about to really freak out, when Mikey moaned at the mistreatment he was getting. Raph closed his eyes and let his head drop onto his brother's plastron. "Thank you…" He breathed, not sure who he was saying it to, but felt the depth of his relief and gratefulness down to his toes. He left a mark on Mikey's face, but at the moment, he was too grateful that Mikey was alive to care. Moaning meant life.

As he willed himself up, and put Mikey into a fireman's carry, he realized something else. He was freaking out pretty fast there. Was this the spores at work? Did he almost give in to his fear, the one he knew of other than cockroaches? Of being too weak to protect his brothers? Of even being the thing that gets them killed?

Shaking his head to drive the crazy thoughts out, he started for the lair. He would have to come back for the others, but Mikey needed to get somewhere safe. Besides, he knew where he was now. Four blocks from home. Where they really running for only an hour? The little punk ran five miles, in a dead sprint…..er, at his fastest run in an hour? Who knew he had that in em?

TBC