Part 11
Raphael took the quick route down the wall, using the rain gutter to guide himself and landing hard on the pavement. In front of him, the warehouse filled with yells and crashing wood and metal. Raphael pulled Donatello's flash grenades, wasting precious time gauging Leonardo's location. There were gunshots-far too many gunshots-no one could dodge them all-
Judging his brother's location by the screams, he broke the closest window and tossed in both flash grenades, one close, one farther in, turning his head as white light and thunder cracks filled the bottom floor. Before the smoke cleared, Raphael went through the window, sizing up the twenty men groaning and staggering around him.
"Gotta get me more of those," he said to himself, punching out the first two to his right.
His brother was nowhere to be seen, but Raphael couldn't see all the way to the end of the warehouse, putting his sai through two of them just so they would fall and give him a better view. A line of glass sparkled along the concrete. Leonardo would have hit the floor in a roll and come up sprinting, racing through a gauntlet of heavily armed men. The crashing and yelling farther in meant that his brother was still alive and able to fight, and Raphael had a moment's opportunity to look for his brother.
There! At the back wall, a half-dozen men struggling to aim at a shadow flowing between them.
Raphael frowned. Leonardo moved not like a fighter but like a thief-no heroic overhand swings, no low sweeps, no straightforward punches. Nothing straightforward. All angles, all motion. Bullets sparked on the stair's steel railing, bright flashes of molten gold and orange between the flowing black scarf, always missing the target only inches away. Somehow Leonardo managed to keep behind his attackers, always moving in circles to stand just at their shoulder, ducking a raised gun barrel and coming in close-another man dropped, hands pressed against his side as blood welled out, as Leonardo slipped by.
And then it was impossible to care about Leonardo when the fighting turned hot at the front. Too many men with guns, still staggering but bringing their barrels up in Raphael's direction. He was aware of an orange blur moving to his left, Michelangelo turning acrobatic tricks and splashing blood againt the wall. That his little brother didn't make his usual quips and smart ass insults made Raphael's stomach sink.
This was why Leonardo should never have run off to play thief, he thought bitterly. Leonardo's plans, as much as he liked to complain, had layers-plan a, plan b, plan c, and plan shit run for your life. Their older brother spun out plans like second nature, able to see the whole battlefield even in the middle of the fight.
"Raph plans" were exactly what they sounded like. Find the enemy and charge. If it didn't work the first time, wipe the blood from his eyes and try again. Too dangerous to spend energy laughing at the enemy. Too dangerous to stand still for long, and they needed to reach the back of the warehouse right now.
Bullets whizzed close to his head, following his smooth arc as he used the wall as a springboard, punching his sai into one man's head, then out again. One more down. If he'd been less powerful, he might have worried about his weapons sticking fast into bone, but the one time his sai sank too far into a ribcage, he brought his foot up and pushed the body away into a gunman drawing a bead on Michelangelo.
Like Leonardo had said, nothing dirty in a fight. Not when it came to keeping each other safe.
A bullet grazed his shoulder, burning and spinning him half around. His hand was already up, using the momentum to send the sai into the other man's chest.
It was why Raphael hated trying to come up with plans. Plans meant putting his brothers into harm's way. Raphael could take a brutal amount of punishment that would leave his brothers faltering from pain. He was just bigger, broader. The same graze that Raphael could shake off could put Donatello on the ground.
He didn't see any flashes of purple, though, and the thought brought him a little hope. It was just him and Michelangelo, and his stupid older brother ahead somewhere. Donatello was wasted in a fight when he could just as readily-
The lights flickered and went out-perfect, Raphael thought-and suddenly the tide of battle turned.
Humans couldn't see in the dark, but ninja were trained for shadow work.
Now the bullets were as likely to hit a human as a turtle. With another crash of glass, the fight became even more one-sided.
"Did I miss anything?" Donatello asked, his bo slamming audibly into someone's gun to knock it away, then back into their head to put them down.
"Just Batman heading upstairs," Michelangelo said.
"Batman's a hero," Raphael grumbled. "More like freakin' Catwoman."
That brought a choke from Donatello, but Raphael didn't know why.
With the lights out, the gun flashes at the end of the warehouse stood out starkly. They had mopped up the last of the shooters here at the front, but clearly Leonardo had chosen to speed through the Diablo Puerto gang, counting on darkness and his own agility to avoid being hit. Several men lay on the floor, bleeding or squirming or silent, but more went up the steps after him, and more gunfire erupted from upstairs.
Raphael motioned for his brothers to follow.
"We gotta pull some of them away," he said, "give Leo a chance-"
He stopped, noticing that the flash grenades had left black burns along a low wooden table and the piles of paper money now smoldering and catching alight. The fires burned low, tiny flickers creeping up along a ratty sofa, over a heap of blankets, over a pile of neatly stacked hundred dollar bills. Toward a pile of empty and half empty liquor bottles spilled out across the floor. By the time he reacted, pulling a rug out from under a body and flinging it toward the flames, he was too late.
Michelangelo put his arm out, dragging Raphael backward as glass shattered and flames burst out of the impromptu Molotov cocktails. The blast was small, just enough to send out shards and flaming vapor, just enough to spread the flames out toward dropped guns, against broken wood pallets along the wall.
"Damn it," Raphael coughed, climbing back to his feet. "Clothesline a guy, why don'cha?"
"I thought you knew not to run toward a kaboom about to happen," Michelangelo said. "Donny-"
"Don't even," Donatello said, backing away from the growing fire. "Even if there are extinguishers, I don't know where they are or what's gas and electrical-"
"How long?" Raphael said.
"I can't-"
"More or less, Donny!"
"Well, it is all concrete," Donatello said, looking around as well as he could in the dark. His heart sank when he saw the mass of narrow pipes that climbed the wall like thick ivy. Already one of them was beginning to glow red.
"We need to get Leo and go," he said, already backing up. "Before this place does."
"Raph plan it is," Michelangelo said, waving his arm for them to follow. "Let's charge!"
"I'd kill for a Leo plan," Raphael grumbled, right on his little brother's heels as they headed to the back.
"Look on the bright side." Donatello used his staff to vault up the staircase, avoiding the handful of bodies on the steps. "Right now, a Raph plan's looking a lot like a Leo plan."
"Not exactly cheering me up."
Halfway up the stairs, Michelangelo yelped and vaulted into a handstand onto the railing, heading up on his hands as if it were a balance beam.
"Watch your step!" Michelangelo called over his shoulder. "Guess what Batman decided to drop?"
Raphael was up on the railing before he spotted the points of caltrops on the steps. No wonder the gangsters here on the stairs were stretched out on the stairs and screaming, all thoughts of the fight out of their minds. Caltrops, long inches of sharpened steel welded together, lay scattered all along the staircase, long enough to spear someone even through the rubber soles of a sneaker or boot. When the victim fell, his knees and hands would similarly be jabbed, until finally he lay on his side, blood spurting out from his ribs.
Raphael shared a look with Donatello.
"He don't fight like this," Raphael said lowly. "Not usually."
Donatello nodded once, not in agreement but to affirm that Leonardo did, on occasion, turn vicious.
"When he gets desperate," Donatello said. "It just doesn't happen often."
"So what part of this is desperate?" Raphael asked. "Being surrounded by a gang or running away from home?"
"I think they're kind of bleeding together," Donatello said. And winced. "Yikes, bad choice of words."
They came up onto the second floor, more of a wide steel catwalk that overlooked the expanse of the first floor increasingly lit by the fire below. Here the fighting grew tighter, more men crowded into less than a third of the space, and Raphael could barely spot his brother in the middle. Gunfire came in sporadic cracks now that any stray bullet could hit someone else, but the yells and angry cursing and the wild swaying of the gang told Raphael just had bad it must be in the center.
And then someone went backwards over the railing, screaming as he fell, hitting the floor with a wet thump.
"Sounds like he's still going," Raphael muttered. "Donny, Mikey, keep yanking guys off the side, make some fighting room."
"What're you gonna do?" Michelangelo asked, already climbing over the railing.
"Same thing as always," Raphael said, unfurling his weighted chain and swinging it overhead. "Charge."
One swipe of the chain took out three bulky men, splashing blood on the wall as all of them dropped with little more than a surprised whuff, their guns clattering to the floor. The next swipe took two teens, light enough that they followed the chain's momentum as they sprawled over.
Raphael started to grind his teeth. Michelangelo and Donatello were already making progress on their side, either pulling guys over the side or knocking them out so that they dropped where they stood. But that was one or two at a time, and while he'd taken out a handful already, this just wasn't making a dent in the force in front of him.
Even more annoying, the crowd hadn't noticed what was happening around their edge. Leonardo might have preferred fighting from the shadows, but Raphael liked his opponent to realize he was kicking their ass.
Again, he spotted Leonardo in the midst of the fight. Here his brother had no room for the fancy maneuvering he preferred, instead forced back to his swords, slicing handguns in half, slicing above eyes so that his enemies blundered into each other, blinded by bleeding headwounds.
Raphael rarely practiced with swords, preferring the short jabs of his sai, but he knew how to use a blade. More to the point, he knew how his own style of stabbing and slicing deep meant running the risk of the blade jamming in bone or deep tissue. Even his own sai occasionally stuck fast in someone's spin or shoulder. Raphael had the luxury of being strong enough to wrench his sai free, but Leonardo couldn't afford to slow down, not in such a tight crowd.
Even as he swung his chain, clearing the gang away with each hit, Raphael studied his brother's fighting. He would never tell Donatello, but he remembered the advice.
Try actually watching him. You've lived with him for nineteen years. Stop acting like you're wearing blinders.
A thought was slowly forming. A raging fight was hardly the best place to try to study, but Raphael had a front row seat and, up this close, he couldn't help but see the change that had taken place.
Over two months away from his family, up to becoming the Fantasma, Leonardo had left behind his old habits-powerful thrusts, straight cuts, the solid punches and kicks that would break sternums and crush skulls. Instead he favored finding the shadows cast around him and hiding inside, stubbornly clinging to the darkness conveniently thrown by the fire growing below, somehow hiding in front of their faces. A glint of steel, his scarf trailing in the muzzle flash of a fired gun. Nothing more.
No wonder, Raphael thought. He always liked hiding better.
But the style had a weakness.
One misjudged cut, one step too far out into the light, and Leonardo wouldn't dodge the next bullet.
Their brothers had noticed the same and come up with their own idea of helping. Michelangelo leaned out on the railing, almost daring gravity to pull him off, and held his hand back as far as he could. Raphael spared a glance and felt himself pale.
"Mikey," he whispered in admiration, "you vicious son of a bitch."
"Fire in the hole!" Michelangelo yelled out, hurling his flash grenade as hard as he could into the midst of the gang, almost perfectly between Raphael and the wild shouting gang surrounding Leonardo.
This time, without a brick wall and only a few dozen men between him and the explosion, the flash forced Raphael to turn away. Even through his helmet, the sound made him startle back, the ending vibrations still reverberating through his chest.
He sucked in a breath, suddenly swinging the chain as hard as he could to clear the way, to somehow close the distance. He had armor. Leonardo only had that thin scarf.
And the men were on fire. Screams turned to high pitched shrieks as Diablo Puerto collectively started to burn. Raphael took a step back, and near the other side of the landing, he spotted Donatello putting his bo staff out toward Michelangelo, giving him another handhold as he climbed back over the railing, back on firm concrete as-
A dark blur leaped out of the flames, tackling Raphael and sending them both sliding backwards along the floor so that Raphael's helmet thunked against the wall. The blur lay for a moment beside him, panting for breath and groaning in a reassuringly familiar voice.
"Ow..." Raphael grunted, pushing himself up.
Leonardo started moving, and Raphael instinctively gripped tight as it started to slide away.
"Oh no you don't," Raphael said. "You lousy little thief..."
A sharp gasp, and Leonardo's head snapped up, his eyes growing wide enough to reflect the fire creeping up the far wall.
"What are you...?" Leonardo breathed, shaking his head slowly. "No-no no no-you can't be here. You can't-"
"We're all here, Einstein," Raphael said, growling as he stood and hauled Leonardo up with him. "Jesus, ditch the scarf, yer on fire."
With effort and using all of his weight, Leonardo pushed away from him, staggering against the wall. The scarf fell around his shoulders, the edges of cloth smoldering and trailing flames along the edge, and Raphael straightened in shock.
Leonardo was limping from a wound through his thigh, only a few inches above his knee. He'd wrapped it, but the narrow blood stain seeping through the bandage was obvious. He also had bandages around his shoulder and bicep, plus a splint around that same forearm and wrist. Sprained if not outright broken.
"Leo-"
"No!" Leonardo grabbed Raphael, trying to see through the helmet. "You have to get out of here, you all have to get out-"
The catwalk groaned and shuddered once, bending at a sharp angle where Michelangelo's flashgrenade had exploded. The way it leaned hard to one side wrenched at the moorings in the ceiling, pulling the catwalk several degrees to the side and sending a burning man down into the flames. The whole of the floor now rumbled like a drumroll as the fire found fuel to burn even around concrete, inching its way up the wiring toward the catwalk.
"Sure," Raphael said, closing his hand tight around Leonardo's good wrist as his brother leaned back. "And you're coming with us."
"I-"
Yelping, Leonardo bent and fell to one knee, grimacing as his wounded leg buckled. Raphael went down with him, putting an arm around his shell to hold him up as Leonardo leaned on him.
"What the hell happened to you?" Raphael said, pulling Leonardo farther toward the stairs, away from the gang. "We heard you got shot."
"Heard from who?" Leonardo grumbled as he self-consciously pulled the scarf acros his body, hiding the injuries and making them that much more obvious. He tore off the smoldering edges before he started to burn.
"Doesn't matter," Raphael said. "You obviously are. Was that shot straight through?"
"That isn't-," he said, then bit off his curse. He didn't have time to yell at his brother. "Okay, listen-there was a theft of mutagen-"
"You mean you stole-"
"I didn't steal it!" Leonardo snapped. "I wouldn't have-gah, whatever. I tracked it down to here, but this is what they've been angling for this whole time."
"What, the mutagen?"
"That, and other things." Leonardo waved his hand as if motioning toward all the thefts he'd managed. "It wasn't everything-the comic, the book, those weren't important, but the necklace, the skull in that ball thing that April had-"
The floor tilted wildly, canting in toward the center. Raphael went to one knee, then yelled as he felt himself sliding. Worse, Leonardo had nothing to catch onto except his brother, trying to brace himself against the wall and only slowing his descent as the steel floor bent further.
"Hold on!"
Raphael slung his chain out, catching the far stair railing at the very end. He pulled, but he couldn't lift both himself and Leonardo with just one arm.
"Fire must be warping the steel," he muttered. "Leo, you're gonna have to climb up over me."
Leonardo was looking down at the twisted wreck of steel still dipping in the middle. On the far wall, Michelangelo and Donatello both clung to either side of a broad window, the glass broken out to make a clear foothold for them. And all along the center of the floor, splashed up on the wall and ceiling, so neon purple that it stood out even in the fire light, a streak of what was so clearly mutagen.
"Oh shit." Raphael looked down at the mass of Diablo Puerto gang members, all of them down in the fire and yet still moving, no longer shrieking from burns but from changing into something that could withstand those flames.
"Raph, let go."
Raphael looked down and saw that not only had Leonardo turned on his shell, he'd also flipped a knife into his bad hand. Leonardo glanced up at him, nodding with more confidence than he had any right to fell.
"Trust me," Leonardo said. "I have to get up on the roof."
"What?" Raphael said. "Anything up there's gonna burn up anyway-"
"The fire won't be fast enough," Leonardo said. "Please, Raph-"
"You're hurt!" Raphael yelled, trying to pull him up and snarling when he couldn't.
Leonardo stared down at the pit of what had become large, writhing snakes, filling the bottom floor with black shadows and red flame. Swallowing once, he looked up at his brother and forced a wan smile.
"Make up your mind," Leonardo said, giving a sad laugh. "I thought you wanted me to be a leader."
Raphael stared at him, or at least he seemed to, with the fire light playing off of his helmet. Cut off from them by the flames, Michelangelo smashed the window completely, clearing a way for himself and Donatello. Behind him, the chain jerked as the railing started to slip. Raphael was out of choices.
"You better make that jump," Raphael said.
Not answering, Leonardo just gave him a simple nod and faced the widening crevice between him and the far wall.
With a strangled, frustrated curse, Raphael let go.
Instead of a jump, Leonardo let himself slide toward the flames.
tbc...