Okay, this chapter is short and not as good as I would like. But after I got my first reviews for this story, I felt like I couldn't wait much longer. So here it is! My thanks to Winter Empress Jules and Alwayslivetothefullest345 for reviewing. I appreciate it more than you know!

Once again, I don't own TMNT.

Chapter 4

"Get him on the ship! Now!" ordered Lyn, fear for Leo strengthening her voice. "Mikey! Rae! Get the cask!" She and Raph carried Leo between them. She fumed. Leo's idea had been a good one, she'd admit that, but the idiot had nearly killed himself carrying it out!

So much for upgrading our weapons, she thought sourly. Just that day, each of them had imbued their weapons with energy from the Spirit Forge with Juto watching.

Raph stepped boldly into the Forge, and flames engulfed him. When they receded, Raph stood there unscathed, energy brimming from his sai. Juto said indignant rage suited the red-clad turtle.

Emboldened by Raph's success, the rest of them stepped into the Forge, bracing themselves as the flames rushed toward them, only to feel nothing but a breeze before leaving them with weapons that felt more a part of them than ever, as if a piece of their soul had been welded to their weapons, except for Leo. Though energy extended from his swords, he claimed to feel nothing different about them.

During the fight with the river demons, merely focusing allowed them to perform stunts with their weapons they'd never been able to execute before. It had felt freaking awesome, though Lyn had worried that Rae, Raph, or Mikey would end up crashing into the walls of the cliff out of sheer adrenaline. But it ended up being Leo that got hurt.

They all said drying up that river was impossible, but then Leo went and did it. They'd been impressed and amazed, but then Leo fell to the ground, completely drained.

Idiot, Lyn thought as they boarded the ship. Only a week before, her brothers had told her and her sisters about Leo's tendency to nearly get killed, the worst out of the four of them. Gazing at Leo's shaking form, along with remembering several other incidents described or hinted at earlier, Lyn began to believe them.

With the casket safely stored onboard and the ship underway, Lyn checked her brother's pulse, heartbeat, and breathing. Fortunately, the former two were steady, and his breathing, while hoarse, was nothing to be worried about it, though his skin was rather hot.

Lyn quickly found a store of water and laid a wet washcloth on his forehead while helping him drink. He slowly regained consciousness. "Hey Lyn," he greeted weakly.

Lyn glared. "You're an idiot."

"Hey it worked."

Lyn chose not to argue. "Here, drink some more of this." She held the canteen to his mouth.

"I can drink myself, Lyn," he protested.

"Yeah, sure." Sarcasm dripped from Lyn's voice as she smacked Leo outstretched arm, preventing him from taking the canteen from her. "Ah, ah, ah. Any unauthorized movement and I will strap you down," Lyn warned, shoving her finger in his face, "and I don't care what the Tribunal says, you won't be getting up for at least two days." She glared, daring Leo to contradict her with a glare that the exhausted turtle thought made Shredder look as harmless as a Girl Scout.

Despite the hot day, Leo shivered. "She's not kidding." Rae piped up from the doorway, surrounded by most of the others. "Trust me, I know from experience."

Leo reluctantly relaxed.

Lyn smiled smugly. "Good turtle. I'm going to get more water. Stay right there." She strode belowdeck.

The others approached. "Not going to try to get up bro?" asked Mikey with a half-smile on his face.

"And risk her wrath?" Leo replied, eyeing them as if they'd lost their sense. His sisters had told them Lyn was a strict doctor, but he hadn't imagined what it would be like to experience it first hand. She was worse than Splinter.

His brothers seemed to be thinking along the same lines. "Bro," Don said, "It's a rare warrior who can intimidate you into staying put." He grinned. Lyn's coercions were nothing the turtles hadn't heard before from Splinter or each other, but something in the girl's posture and tone rendered her much more menacing than anything they'd seen before. Raph, Mikey, and he probably would've done the same thing to keep Leo from hurting himself more, but Lyn was the first to administer threats so efficiently and effectively.

Raph smirked. He'd originally planned on telling Leo off himself, but Lyn had just saved him the trouble. If he hadn't been so worried, he'd be laughing his head off at that confrontation. But after eyeing his brother's still weakened body, he decided to tease Leo about it later and returned his attention to his brother's condition.

"What's her official diagnosis bro? Any really bad injuries?"

"I don't think so," replied Leo. "Or else she would've told me what limbs not to use."

"You're not exactly injured," Lyn explained as she reentered Leo's room. "You're just really drained. Although I wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to check your brain for damages," she added as an afterthought

Leo glared. She shrugged. "Hey, from what I've heard, you have a tendency to get badly hurt."

"It's not exacly my idea!"

"Isn't it your idea to get into the situation?"

"No, it's not."

His brothers snorted. "Okay, sometimes yes, but most of the time it isn't," he amended.

"If you say so," Lyn replied absently, as if she was humoring him. "Drink," she ordered as she handed him a full canteen. "And try to stay off your feet for the rest of the day and you'll be good as new by tomorrow morning."

"Yes, ma'am," Leo replied, throwing her a mock salute. He quailed under Lyn's scorching glare in reply.

Lyn rolled her eyes, smirking at his reaction as she strode out to at the wheel to give Dani a quick scan. The chigiriki wielder probably wasn't badly hurt, but she still wanted to look

The boys took advantage of Lyn's temporary absence to laugh at the exchange. Leo glared. "I'll be sure to remember this when she's treating one of you guys for injuries."

They only laughed harder as Lyn returned.

"All right everybody, out! He needs his rest!" Lyn ordered, shooing everyone out. "And don't laugh, because you boys are next." Ignoring the sudden gleams of fear in their eyes, she turned to Leo. "I expect you to rest while I check the others over for injuries." She waited till Leo nodded before exiting, but left the door open behind her so she and the others could keep an eye on him.

Leo laid his head back. As much as she annoyed him, he could understand Lyn's position. If it were one of the others injured, he'd probably act the same way. Heck, he probably would've used threats as well, though he doubted he could administer them as effectively as Lyn.

Meanwhile, Raph, Don, and Mikey were learning just how Leo felt when Lyn checked him over. She gave them the full body look over and fussed over cuts that looked to stand a risk of infection. An altercation between her and Raph nearly resulted in a wrestling match when Lyn threatened to twist his left arm behind his back in order to examine a cut on said arm. Raph eventually submitted when Rae warned him that Lyn had plenty of practice on crooks and possessed a particular aptitude for joint manipulation.

After Lyn checked her siblings and herself over and assured herself that nobody would keel over, she returned to watch Leo followed by the others, with one sibling to man the wheel in shifts. Soon, the monastery appeared on the horizon.

Lyn lay on her futon, fuming. The tribunal cared more for that stupid headwear than the life of one of their own acolytes. She'd wanted nothing more that to drag her siblings and Thorn and Splinter back on that ship and hightail it back to New York.

Her brothers, though, seemed to gain a new depth of understanding upon seeing the threat: Shredder.

Lyn and her sisters knew the Shredder was dangerous, but had never met him. As soon as the siblings returned to their room, the girls had demanded a full explanation from the boys regarding their encounters with the Shredder.

The tale had been one of sorrow, blood, and pain, with little triumph in between. The first encounter, Leo's ambush and the destruction of April's building, the assault on Foot headquarters, TCRI, the boat, the aftermath of the Triceraton invasion, and, worst of all, the spaceship, which gave Leo the scar on his shell. Along with that arose the unavoidable mention of Karai, incidents with her as a friend and an enemy, most recently as the enemy who had driven them from their home and was likely still hunting them down in New York.

The boys' reaction to the Shredder helmet wasn't so surprising now. Hours later, and the unexpected revelation still plagued their minds.

Mikey grunted as he rolled over onto his side, then to his plastron. "Uhh, I can't sleep!"

Don yawned. "Neither can we."

"Shh, you'll wake the old guys." Raph jerked his head toward Splinter, Thorn, and the Ancient One.

"They're not sleeping, they're meditating," Leo admonished. "There's a difference Raph."

"Not in my book," Raph and Rae chorused. They grinned at each other.

"So much danger," Splinter muttered. "Never wanted this for them."

The Ancient then chastised Splinter for muttering and assured him and Thorn that their children were safe. Splinter was not reassured, telling everyone that he held the tribunal partially responsible for Yoshi's death.

The turtles expressed their confusion. Real Shredder? True Shredder? Utrom Shredder? Just how many Shredders were there?

The Ancient One and Splinter spared each other a short glance. "My children," he began. "It is time you know the true story of how this all began. Of an evil darker than all evil. A primal force of malevolence that was and is." He paused. "The original Shredder."

"No one really knows what level of the dark depths spawned him," the Ancient One continued. "But in the year 300 A.D. in Hamato, the Shredder rose from some foul stinking pit in the form of a terrible Yokai, a demon that had but one goal, to subjugate the world, and to turn it into his own personal empire full of agony and destruction."

The turtles' eyes widened. "He spread his evil everywhere and seemed unstoppable. But there were five exceptional warriors in Japan at the time," Splinter intoned.

"You see, kame," the Ancient One said. "Japan was split into many clans at the time, warring amongst themselves for power. The clans were composed of warrior aristocrats, peasants, and slaves. One clan was exceptionally small compared to the others, consisting of only five warriors. But such was the warriors' skill that the clan and its land remained unconquered, despite many attacks. And you young ones have already had the honor of meeting those warriors. There was Hisomi, Chikara, Juto, Kon, and perhaps the most skilled and ambitious of them all, Oroku Saki."

"Saki!" Leo exclaimed. "Shredder's fake human identity. He was real?"

"Don't interrupt Leonardo," the Ancient One scolded. "Just listen." Once he was certain Leo would comply, he continued. "The leaders of all the clans met with the five warriors and promised them and their clan immunity from attack if they defeated the Yokai Shredder, and the warriors agreed. Craftsmen from many clans forged special armor for the warriors, and they rode into battle against the Shredder."

The turtles listened, breathless, as Splinter and the Ancient One described the furious battle between the five warriors and the demon Shredder. Though none of them were fond of the tribunal, their respect for the warriors increased as they learned of them defeating the demon, although the fact that it was Oroku Saki who had finished it off left them feeling, well, confused.

But all had not been well, for Oroku Saki had yielded to the seductions of the demon and its promise of unlimited power and allowed the fiend's spirit to live within him.

"Even as the land celebrated, Oroku Saki revealed his betrayal and attacked," Splinter continued. "Many perished on that day. Soon afterward, Saki eliminated his entire clan himself, except for the other four warriors, who escaped. Japan was plunged into an age of darkness. There seemed no limit to the evil of which Saki was capable of. He soon grew to be the most powerful warlord of all, and his name was spoken in whispers. The Shredder."

Silence penetrated the room as the turtles listened to the story; even their breathing could hardly be heard. Following Saki's betrayal, the four remaining warriors devoted themselves to defeating the Shredder, traveling the world to learn the mystic arts, growing powerful while attaining immortality until they were at last prepared to confront the Shredder on his own turf.

The battle between the four warriors and Shredder must have been a sight, each turtle thought as the old rat and human told of a confrontation that destroyed the Shredder's citadel and a battle between dragons which eventually defeated the Shredder and determined the demon's ultimate fate. And of the tribunal's tradition of training acolytes to help them. They also finally learned what the artifacts consisted of: Shredder's helmet, gauntlet, and body.

"So there was a real Shredder," Leo stated.

"And the Utrom Shredder was an imposter," Don added.

"Imposter maybe, but he could probably give the demon a run for his money from what we've heard from you," Maddie commented.

"Maybe," Mikey replied.

"But this Shredder's got butt-kicking magic powers that nearly killed the tribunal," Raph countered.

"And now someone's trying to resurrect him." Dani shook her head.

"And we're the only ones standing in the way." Lyn frowned, still trying to bring everything up to speed.

"Okay," Rae folded her arms, deep in thought.

No one spoke. There was so much to take in.

Finally, Thorn broke the silence. "Rest, my children. You will need it if you are to defeat him." She smiled gently. "I think if he does come back, he will find he has bit off more than he can chew with you." Everyone smiled slightly. Thorn's words were exactly what they needed to hear.

Once the turtles had fallen asleep, Splinter turned his gaze to Thorn. "You truly believe they will triumph," said Splinter. It wasn't a question.

"Your boys have proven their might time and again, Splinter. And all their lives, I have sensed great strength in my girls. Now that they are together, I believe they all will gain greater power. I know the odds are against us," she added, "and sometimes things happen. I have seen too much of the world to not know that. But I will always believe in them."

"Ah, Thorn." Splinter smiled. Some of the tension melted from his eyes. "Your words give me hope, in spite of my dreams."

Thorn smiled warmly in return. Despite experiencing the same dreams as Splinter, she believed in her children all the same. She had to. She refused to contemplate what would happen to them if they didn't.

"Let us all sleep," she suggested. Splinter nodded and lay down next to her, each drawing comfort from the other.

I hope I didn't disappoint anyone. Please review.