Fourteen

What does he mean, I'm not fighting?

Leonardo stalks down the endless passage.

How am I SUPPOSED to fight him, if he disappears every time I try?

He doesn't even know if the red haze is still there. His focus is completely inwards, as he tries to figure out how he can escape from this ridiculous game. He just walks, unseeing, one foot in front of the other.

What does Ue want him to do? Fight? He's offered to fight every time the other ninja appeared, but the foreign warrior wouldn't engage him. He would only talk, taunt, torment, and then disappear.

If he thinks I'm going to LOOK for him, he's crazy.

He will not go one inch out of his way to find his challenger. The only thing he seeks is his brothers, and his home. If Ue stands in his way, he will fight him. But if Ue lurks in some corner, expecting Leo to come to him... then he will be sorely disappointed.

The battle is in here...

Obviously, this challenge is more than just a physical contest. Ue has been playing mind games with him all night. Leo is proud of how he's handled them. He hasn't let the maze break him, hasn't stopped trying to make his way through it. He didn't fall when his brothers were taken from him; rather, the separation only made him stronger, drove him to move faster and destroy anything that stood in his way.

And what does he mean I'm distracted? I'm NOT distracted. I'm focusing on what matters.

... Aren't I?

Leo frowns as he walks.

Maybe he's looking at this wrong. He's been thinking of it as two separate problems: how to find his brothers, and what to do about the battle-crazed ninja who's determined to duel with him. He's been concentrating on the first, and considering the second mainly as an annoyance, as just another obstacle slowing him down and preventing him from reaching his goal.

But that isn't right. Ue isn't incidental to the situation, he's central. Everything that's happened tonight has been his doing.

So, maybe, the only way to get my brothers back is to fight Ue.

Which still leaves the question of how he can possibly engage the teleporting ninja in combat.

But it's not about the combat. He doesn't want to fight me with weapons. He wants me to play this game.

"What are the rules?" he says. Not loudly. Just a question posed to himself.

Maybe they are whatever he wants them to be.

"No, I will not trade you St. James for Oriental," Leo said. "Give me the dice."

"Come on," Mike wheedled, not passing the spotted cubes. "It's a good trade."

Friday evening. The Turtles had come back in from their game of tag, and they were sitting with their friends in a loose circle on the floor of the den, contemplating a very abstract representation of Atlantic City.

"But I don't have any other blue properties," Leo said.

"I'm sure Don and April will trade you theirs," Mike said confidently.

"What are you talkin' about?" Raph demanded. "Don and April don't have to trade Leo anything."

"That's how the game is played," Mike said, as though everyone knew this.

"Those ain't the rules," Raph objected.

"Sure they are," Mike said. "You have to match the colors. See?" He tugged on the tails of his own mask. "Orange." He reached forward to swat a loose end of Leo's bandana, where it had fallen over his shoulder when he leaned across the board to try again for the dice. "Blue."

"If those are the rules," April said, "what properties do I get?"

"You can have the yellow ones," Mike replied generously, smoothly palming the dice before Leo's stretching fingers could grab them. "Yellow is a good color for you." He turned back to Leo. "What do you say?"

"All right, fine," Leo said, passing over the square of orange-striped cardboard.

"Are you outta your mind?" Raph clutched his head while Mike cheerfully arranged his trio of orange properties. "Now he's gonna win!"

"So what?" Leo said, realigning his own properties to make room for Oriental. "It's only a game."

"Yeah, Raphie," Mike said, in his most irritatingly off-hand manner. "It's only a game." He produced a stack of five-hundred-dollar Monopoly bills, seemingly from nowhere, and handed them to Don. "Hotels on my orange properties, banker."

Casey groaned the loudest. His shoe token was five, seven, and eight spaces from Mike's new luxury development.

It hadn't been about winning, that night. It had just been about spending time with his friends and family, about enjoying their company and seeing them happy and free from their usual worries.

Leo had gone bankrupt two rounds after the trade, but as he sat on the beat-up couch watching his youngest brother joyfully develop his real estate empire, he had felt like a winner.

There was more than one way to play every game, and something else that Ue said begins to give Leo an idea. He works on it as he walks, and the next time he turns his thoughts outward, the red haze is completely gone.

Just ahead of him, the passage narrows suddenly, and disappears around a curve.

Leo turns the corner without hesitation, and keeps walking, his mind clear and his eyes wide open.

Raphael shivers, and draws his knees closer to his chest.

He'd been walking in the narrow passages. Then he'd been crawling, and then creeping on his stomach, as the ceiling got steadily lower. He was not going to go back. Not until the tunnel became completely impassable. Sooner or later, it had to open out again.

It hadn't.

He'd kept forcing his way forward, to the point where his shell just would not fit through the narrow opening. The tunnel had become nothing more than a round tube through the rock, and no matter how he turned and twisted, he could not go any further.

He had started to creep backwards, the rim of his shell scraping against the walls, but his feet had touched stone and he could not get through. He had reached out with his toes, exploring, but somehow the passage behind him had become blocked, and he was trapped.

He had fought, at first, beating at the solid rock with fists and elbows and knees, but the capsule-shaped space he was entombed in only became smaller, gathering him up, making him curl in on himself until he could barely move.

And then he had just stopped trying.

He shivers again. The space around him had morphed into a cube, just big enough for him to hunch in with his arms wrapped around his legs and his face tucked against his knees. The walls had become white, almost too bright to look at, and it was cold.

"Raphael."

His answer is only a rasping whisper, almost lost in the thick padding of his kneeguards. "Lea' me alone."

"Raph."

"No." His arms tighten around his legs, and his eyes squeeze even more firmly shut.

Again, that voice of infinite, infuriating patience. "Raph. Look at me."

"No!" Just leave me ALONE!

Whoever it is, they won't go away. "Raph. Stand up."

His voice shakes, uncharacteristically, and he doesn't even care. "I can't."

"Yes, you can." Gentle encouragement, filled with confidence because it doesn't know how to doubt. "Give me your hand."

He doesn't think he can. With a great effort, he lifts his head.

A green hand is floating in front of him, sticking downwards from the white ceiling.

"I can't," he says again.

"Raphael." The hand waits. It will wait forever. "Come with me."

Then his own hand rises, moved by a force that surely can't have come from within himself, and his fingers are touching the other hand, and he's being pulled up through the whiteness.

And he's standing with his brother.

Leo steadies him as he tilts dangerously, and Raph doesn't take his eyes from Leo's face until he's sure he's standing on his own two feet.

Then he looks down.

There's no white box.

Only a concrete shelf beside a wide drainage channel.

"What the hell?" he murmurs.

A gentle pressure on the back of his shoulder brings his attention back to his brother.

"Are you all right?" Leo asks.

"Yeah." Raph pulls back, letting Leo know he can stand on his own. "'m okay." He looks around, trying to figure out where he is and how he got there. "Is this... where we ate the ice cream?"

Leo blinks at him. "What?"

"You remember, that time with the construction workers...?"

Leo glances around the tunnel. "I don't know, maybe. Listen, Raph, we've got bigger problems. You remember that masked ninja who challenged me to a duel once?"

"Yeah...?" Raph says slowly.

"He's back," Leo says. "And he's trying to play some kind of game with me. All of this -" he makes a gesture that encompasses the entire night "- is his doing."

"This is his funhouse?" Raph's hands go, almost of their own accord, to his weapons. "I'll freakin' kill him."

He'd like to say more in that vein, but Leo turns sharply, looking down the tunnel, his own hands going to his katana. Raph follows his gaze automatically, his sai sliding easily into his palms.

A minute later Leo relaxes, and only then does he seem to realize what Raph is doing. "Put those away," he hisses.

"What's goin' on?" Raph asks, even as he obeys. "I didn't hear anything."

"I know," Leo says tersely. "Just don't talk."

"Wha-"

"For the love of God, Raphael," Leo snaps, "do not talk."

Raph shuts his mouth.

Leo glances up and down the tunnel again, then turns in the direction that should lead back to the place where they had first split up. "Follow me," he says.

And Raph does, unquestioningly.

As they walk, Leo briefly recounts his adventures. Raph has the feeling he's leaving a lot out.

"So every time Don or Mike took initiative," Leo summarizes, "every time they tried to help, every time they said they were able to do something... Ue took them from me." He looks over his shoulder. "Do you understand, Raph?"

Raph nods mutely. Okay. I won't talk. But if you think I won't fight this bastard...

Leo stops, and turns fully to face him. "Raph. I'm serious. If we see him, do not draw your weapons. Don't do anything to provoke him. Do you understand me? You won't win; you'll only get hurt. And if I'm going to have to fight him, I need to know you'll be safe."

It only takes one gesture for Raph to express what he thinks of that idea.

Leo glares back at him stonily. "I don't care if you flip me off. Do not fight him."

Raph crosses his arms defiantly.

"Raphael," Leo says, and there's incredible strain in his voice. "I know you want to fight for me. I know. But if you have any respect for me at all, you'll do what I'm telling you." A little of the tension leaks from his body, and he looks vulnerable, suddenly. "Your safety is more important than mine."

Raph holds Leo's gaze. They've never needed words to communicate. Their eyes are enough. Not true, bro.

"Raph," Leo says, and it's barely more than a whisper. "Please. Don't worry about me. Take care of Don and Mike. Get them home."

Raph looks away, then back. If there's one thing that can stop him from helping a brother, it's knowing that the other two brothers are in equal danger. Fine. But as soon as they're safe, your ugly friend's ass is MINE.

Leo nods. "Thank you." He closes his eyes heavily. "You can talk," he says. "But please, be careful what you say."

"It -" He struggles with the words, beating down the urge to let fly a string of creative threats. Leo watches him apprehensively. "I trust you, bro," he says finally. "Whatever you want me to do."

"Okay." Leo glances again over his shoulder. "We have to keep moving."

Raph follows his lead, and wonders whether he'll be strong enough to keep his promise.

"- and when I climbed down I was back where we started," Don concludes, with perfect timing.

They're not where they started, but they're where everything started to go wrong.

The place where Raph had left them.

"Okay," Don says. "Here's the fork. Now... what's at the end of these roads?"

Mike is frowning at something over Don's shoulder.

"What?" Don asks, and turns to look.

"Are you sure this is the right place?" Mike says. "Because, remember, we left a note, but it's not here..."

Don scans the tunnel. "I think this is the right place..." He smiles suddenly. "Maybe Leo and Raph have been here. Maybe they found it."

"But Leo already knew," Mike reminds him. "Remember, he found me here after you..."

"Oh," Don says, his spirits falling again. "Well, maybe Raph..."

"Even if he did," Mike says dejectedly, "how does that help us now?"

"Well, maybe..." Don falters. It really doesn't help them. They still have no way of knowing where Raph might have wound up. Even if the note had somehow helped him to get home, they still can't contact him to ask how he got there. "I don't know."

"So now what?" Mike looks up at Don hopelessly. "I can't do this anymore, Donnie. I know where these roads lead. And I don't want to go there again."

Don sighs and looks to the ceiling. Sometimes ceilings help him think, but this one doesn't give him any ideas at all. "Mikey, I'm sorry. I don't know..." He cuts off abruptly, and lowers his gaze, staring straight ahead. "Someone is coming."

Mike whips around, and both of them back up, away from the side tunnel that Raphael disappeared down so many hours ago. Two shadows loom towards them, and they press their shells against the curving wall, preparing for anything.

The two forms that emerge are what they had most hoped for, and what they had most feared.

Leo and Raph pause at the mouth of the tunnel, then rush forward to meet them. "Mikey! Donnie! Are you -"

"Wait." Mike puts out his arm, throwing it sideways in front of Don, forming a barrier. Leo and Raph come to a halt, expressions of confusion on their faces. "Are you guys you?"

"What?" Leo says. "Mikey..."

"No." Mike keeps his arm where it is, and somehow it prevents everyone from moving. "You have to prove who you are." He glances to Donnie. "We'll prove who we are also, so you know it's not a trick." He brings his arm back in, poking his thumb against his chest. "I'm Michelangelo. I can make a sandwich with my feet." The arm goes out again, making a sideways gesture at Don. "Now you. Tell them something only you would know."

Don frowns. "Uh... My online identity is reclusive academic Donald Teller."

"Okay, we believe you," Leo says, though it's obvious he never doubted them in the first place. "Listen, the -"

"No," Mike says again. "Now you guys tell us something."

Leo sighs. "Fine. When we were three years old you guys called me Nardie because you thought we should all have nicknames ending in -ee."

Mike laughs, part nervous tension, part genuine amusement. "Okay, you're Leo." His expression becomes stern again as he turns to Raph. "What about you?"

"This is stupid," Raph mutters.

"Raph," Leo says, and the word seems to contain whole conversations.

Raph's mouth twitches, and then he looks to Don. "You remember that time you replaced Mike's video games with fakes?"

Don nods. "Sure."

"And after that, he renamed all your computer files, and ya couldn't find anything?"

Even as he says it, Don remembers. "Yes."

Raph jerks a thumb against his chest. "That was really my idea."

Beside him, Mike giggles, so Don knows it's true. "Good. I still owe you back for that one."

Raph crosses his arms and grins smugly. "Bring it on, bro."

"Okay, okay," Mike says. "We're all us." He opens his arms. "C'mere."

Leo and Raph aren't usually big on group hugs, but they move forward without hesitation, embracing their brothers, completing the circle.

They stay that way for a long moment, and then they separate. Partially, at least. Mike stays hanging between Raph and Leo, an arm draped over each of them. "Where've you guys been?" he asks.

"Never mind that," Leo says. He looks to Don. "Donnie, are you in the loop on this? The ninja who -"

"I know," Don says.

Leo nods shortly. "Good." He glances at each of them, making sure they're all paying attention. "Guys, listen. Whatever you do, don't say anything threatening towards him. Don't try to fight him. Don't -" He breaks off at Mike's stricken expression.

"I am so, so sorry," Mikey says. "I -"

Leo squeezes Mike's hand, where it lays on his shoulder. "It's not your fault, Mikey. Just, guys, please - whatever happens, stay together. Do exactly what I tell you. Don't give him any reason to hurt you." He searches their faces again. "Promise me."

Mike nods earnestly. Raph's face is stormy, but he grunts assent.

"What's the plan?" Don asks softly.

"We're going to stick together," Leo says, and his tone allows no disagreement. He turns to Raph. "No more running off."

"Whaddya lookin' at me for?" Raph demands.

"I still need your direction sense," Leo says. "But you have to take us with you."

"Guys?" Mikey says in a small voice.

"Where?" Raph pushes Mike off and stands facing Leo. "I tried every freakin' tunnel; there's no way out."

"There must be another," Leo says. "Try to think."

"Guys?" Mikey says again.

Raph shakes his head vehemently. "There's nothin', Leo. Where the hell do you wanna go, anyway? You think you can outrun a freakin' teleporter?"

"Guys," Mike says, for a third time.

"What, Mikey?" Leo says impatiently.

"I hate to tell you this," Mike says, "but... the water is running."