A/N - Please, no one kill me for this chapter. There are reasons for everyone acting the way they are, I guarantee you. This is how I write so please just stick with it. This story will only be six chapters long. An epilogue may come up, but I have not decided on that yet. I will have to see how long the last chapter is.

DISCLAIMER - TMNT belongs to Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird, Mirage Studios and 4Kids Entertainment.


Donatello stepped out of the building housing Raphael's penthouse and greeted his contact. "They're all up top and waiting for you Vigil," he said.

The man nodded, his eyes going solemn behind the mask he wore. Don grimaced and bit down hard on the turtle and walked to the nearest car. "Let's head over to HQ and get everything cleared," he instructed coldly as he forced back any unwanted bitter emotions he had no time to deal with.

The man took his seat in the passenger side of the old convertible just as Don started to rev the engine. They were on the road and driving in silence seconds later, the tall buildings of the local downtown area passing them by. The surrounding cold structures of glass, steel and concrete bounced images of the stars and moon between each other in a mockingly jovial manner that only made the nightly tension of the city all the more bleaker.

Finally, sick of the drowning silence. Vigil spoke, "Is there something you wanted to say, Mr. Hamato?"

Don's face contorted into an even harder angry frown. "No sir," he insisted. "I just want to finish this job up once and for all."

- - -

He had spent the last couple days looking in vain for him, although Raphael had insisted that this was the sort of thing that might happen. Apparently they all heard only scattered words from their most estranged family member over the course of the years, as it was that he seemed to live his life as more of a nomad among the small Manhattan Island. Those few words that were dolled out, however, apparently were not of the most flattering of orations.

Don frowned at his lack of success and sidestepped into an alley to lean against the wall, giving his weary legs a slight reprieve from their exertion. He sighed heavily as he scratched at the itching the tag of his shirt caused on the back of his neck. Lifting one leg up, he brushed away a small handful's worth of debris that had accumulated in the cracks of his calloused soles.

It was just as he was brushing away the gravel bits of his second foot that he heard the scream. At the end of the alley Don had claimed, a young woman ran past the mouth using one of the many crisscrossing passageways. A dark shadow appeared on the wall, moving to chase the woman and swiftly disappeared beyond the edge of the building where the woman had gone as well. The fact that the black visage had no apparent body to accompany it only perked Donatello's interest in the situation all the more.

Planting his feet on the ground, he straightened, earning him a loud popping sound from his back that he promptly ignored, and ambled down the alley to peer around the corner. He arrived just in time to see the long lost owner of the shadow drop the final few feet off the fire escape to land as soundlessly as ever on the rough pavement. The woman, who Don now noticed had run herself into a dead end, was frantically trying to scramble under a pile of debris and garbage to hide in a last ditch effort to get away from her pursuer.

The figure calmly walked, his gait fluid and graceful although unusually anxious, towards the cowering woman and stopped before her, towering over her like he was the Colossus of Rhodes. He bent down to look at her, her trembling form crinkling the newspaper draped clumsily over her head for protection. The figure cocked his head at her in an almost quizzical manor, as if he were studying her like a specimen found in a lab.

There was a sudden blur of motion that made Don blink. As his eyes opened, the figure was no longer bent, nor was he even facing the girl. He was instead rubbing the newspaper the girl had umbrellaed herself with down the length of a long glinting piece of steel that had obviously been removed from one of the two holsters on the figure's back. The girl was no longer trembling, and in fact was quite still now, lying in her corner, unmoving. The only motion in the alley beyond the gentle polishing the figure was doing came from the rolling ball that slowly made its way across the alley to stop halfway between Don and the figure.

Don brought his hand up and bit down on the shell as he stepped out and headed towards the shadowy ball. He had only gotten a few steps into the alley when he was suddenly forcefully pressed against the wall of a nearby building, the bright steel glinting in the moon light just below his chin. He stared in shock at the blue mask that encompassed his brother's eyes as he looked at him with a fierce ferocity that sent an icy wave over Don's bones.

Leonardo did not break away upon recognition of who he had trapped, much to Donatello's dismay, as the steel of his ninjato pressed against the skin of his throat was becoming quite worrisome. Finally, after almost a whole minute of silent glaring, Leonardo stepped back and turned his shell to Don, removing the blade from his brother's throat and sheathing it on his back.

Donatello grimaced and rubbed his throat, warming the area the cold steel had pressed against. "So, you're back now?" Leo asked in a dull monotone that almost seemed to growl like a prowling wolf. Donatello looked at him now, studying his brother's form. In the dim shadows, Don could barely make out the fact that the only gear Leo had on was a belt, the strap that held his ninjato in place, his navy bandana and a series of cloth bands across his torso. The bandana, Don had noted, only had one eyehole for Leo's right eye. Looking at his back in the shallow light, Don was able to make out several chips in the shell where whole chunks of the carapace were simply gone to expose the soft under flesh. As Leo stepped back towards where the girl lay, he passed through the moonlight and Don saw the many deep scars that adorned his arms and legs.

He followed Leo down the alley, but stopped to stand over the shadowy ball. It was a head, just as he had thought. It was the head of the girl whose body was now lying lifeless under a pile of garbage in the corner of the alley. "So what did she do?" he asked Leo who was watching the pooling blood ooze from the garbage to stain the already oily cement a deadly maroon.

Leo shrugged. "Prostitution, thieving, basically being a pile of useless flesh all around." He turned away from the corpse, scowling at Don as he expected a torrent of lectures from him.

Don merely looked between the body and Leo, a sad understanding on his face. "I've been looking for you for over several days now," Don said. "Splinter and Raph both said it would be hard to locate you."

Leo hesitated a moment and then shrugged. "I move around a lot." He gave the now quite cold and gray body one last disgusted look before turning and leaping onto a fire escape that took him to the shadowy roofs.

Don followed him seconds later with all the ease of a trained ninja. Although that did not prevent the sickening pop from echoing as he leapt and landed over the final hurdle of the roof barricade. He straightened, resting one of his thick-scaled hands on the lower part of his shell where the popping had issued from. "Oi, I think I'm getting too old for this," he exclaimed casually.

"You've been slacking," Leo asserted as he stood several feet away leaning against an air vent. Now, in the full breath of the moonlight, Don could finally see him fully. The Chips in his shell were almost mirrored by his plastron, which had dozens of gauges and nicks scattered throughout the area, including a deep hole in his left breast the size of a fist directly over his heart. Across his face passed a cavernous scar that stretched straight down his left side, disappearing beneath the bandana right where his left eye should have been. It certainly explained the lack of a hole in the blue cloth. The gear he wore was tattered and falling apart. A series of crisscrossing suspender-like bands spread star form around his entire carapace, obviously designed to give additional support to his flawed shell. "You spend ten years on your special training session, and then, when you come back, you can barely do a simple air flip. Did you dishonor sensei by abandoning you training when you left? Did you spend that time playing around with your little mechanical toys Donatello?" Leo's voice was harsh and feral, which made Don bring up his hand to bite the turtle ring.

"I'm sorry," was all Don could say to Leo then.

Leo, however, was not finished. "You should have taken that training seriously. I didn't take mine seriously either and it cost me." He gestured vaguely to his face where he was missing an eye. "Ten years of slacking off. Did you expect to come back and have everyone protect you like you used to do? What was your plan Don?" He took three brisk steps forward and landed a hard punch across his Brother's beak. "That's for never telling as anything, not sending word, nothing."

Don sat on the ground where he had fallen and looked up at his brother. The moon reflected off of the bottom of Leo's single remaining eye, and then a small stream flooded and fell down the bandana. He fell forward and collapsed on his brother in a massive hug, sobbing into Don's ear, "And this is for finally coming back."

Don had his arms stretched behind Leo a short distance, unsure as to what he wanted to do with them. He moved to return the embrace, one hand on his brother's back and the other on his head, but at the last minute, he stopped himself and let his arms hang limply at his sides until Leo had finished his crying.

After several minutes, Leo broke away, his eyes dry but still red and his face a sudden mask of the original deadly scowl he adorned. He stood and stepped back to the air vent, turning his back on Don once again. "Raph told me what happened, Leo," Don said in a soothing voice, trying desperately to hide the quaver. "He mentioned that you were doing some in depth training after it."

"I won't let it happen again," Leo replied with cold steel in his voice. "I will keep it from happening again, to me or any of you."

Don sighed and turned away as well. He glanced down into the alley to give the body of the girl one last look. He shuddered and switched his attention to the nearly full moon in the sky. "I came with a message from Raph," he said. He felt Leo's air shift from his hard, cold shell. "He needs help Leo. He needs help from all of us." Don turned back to watch Leo who remained motionless, face cast down as if a fascinating insect dance was taking place at his feet. Don continued. "I…I know you prefer to be on your own and the thought of an organized team mission does not appeal to you anymore, but Raph needs-."

"Is it your plan?" Leo asked suddenly.

Don stared wide-eyed at Leo's back, unsure of the question. He wanted to give his brother the one he wanted to hear, but which that was, after the previous outburst, was eluding him at the moment. "Is the plan Raph wants to use one that you made up or not Donnie?" Leo repeated.

Don bit down on the silver shell again as he took a deep breath to calm himself down. "It's mine, although Raph made a few adjustments to it," he admitted.

Leo seemed to relax, but his head did not move from its bent position. He continued to contemplate the rough roof gravel with the fascination a baby shows a bright color. "Alright," he eventually announced. "I'll help. If my family needs me, I'll help them all out."

Don sighed in relief. "Thanks Leo, now I only need to get Mikey to help."

"I can lead you to his gang's hideout," Leo said, the usual steel back in his voice, and the feral glare back in his eye as he faced Donatello once more. "After that, I'm going to go ahead and have a few words with Raphael before we all meet for a briefing."

Don nodded in agreement and bounded along side Leo as he was led over the rooftops for several blocks. After nearly an hour of running, they stopped on a roof across from a massive warehouse that had music blaring out of it as if it were one massive loudspeaker.