37
Raph
Oh. Now it was on.
I didn't wait around to find out what he wanted. What would the point of that had been? The face of our enemy? I'll say he was the face of our enemy. I leapt up, grabbing the fire escape, and flipped myself up directly in front of Saki. Behind me, Leo was doing the same thing.
Neither of us spoke. Both of us drew our weapons.
Saki's face was uncovered. He smirked at us and slid into a fighting stance. "Such simple minded creatures. I might have known we couldn't talk like reasonable individuals."
I spared about five whole seconds to the thought that he wasn't drawing a weapon, and attacked. My sai stabbed forward, and he blocked me, catching the sai on the sharp tines of his gauntlet. My reverse stab was high, and he caught that as well. I heard Leonardo make a sound of frustration in his throat as we grappled, Saki and I together, unable to offer Leonardo a clear slash as we struggled back and forth.
"I want to talk to you about the disappearances, turtle," Saki growled.
I kicked him, hard in the gut, and broke free as he stumbled back. Leonardo was there in an instant, flipping over my head to offer a downward slash from his katana. Energy crackled sharply along the blades. He followed up with a side slash. Saki dove and rolled, coming to his feet at our sides. A stalemate. I expected his cronies any minute. Any minute, we were gonna be up here, we were gonna be surrounded, and we were gonna be toast.
They never came.
We circled him, and he circled us. "You will recall, turtles, that I am from another planet."
"I didn't come here for a trip down memory lane," I snarled. "I came here for a fight." I flew at him with a combination of kicks. He jarred me to the teeth as he blocked each one. Thin lines of blood ran out of my legs from where the spikes on his gauntlet had nailed me, but he was blocking flat handed, knocking my kicks away without them wherever possible. The back of my neck began to itch. This behavior wasn't right. It wasn't right at all.
"What do you have to say, Saki?" Leonardo held up a hand for me to quit fighting.
Like.
Shell.
With a roar I charged him sideways, aiming to knock him down in a bull rush. I did, but then I was soaring over his head, courtesy of his feet. Leonardo sheathed his swords. Whatever. Who needed him, anyway? I smacked the service shed on the building hard and thought maybe I might have, but then I was at it again. I caught some of Saki's clothing in my sai and ripped backward, leaving it in shreds. The problem was, of course, most of his body was like clothes. Just a suit for the little creature inside, a thing that looked a little like a floating brain. The problem is I'd have to rip through that suit to ever get to him. Once, Leo had cut off his head. We'd believed him to be dead on that day. That wasn't a mistake I intended to make today.
Sadly, I never got the chance. Just as I executed one of my most vicious attacks, Saki moved in. He caught my arm and twisted me around, slamming me down to the gritty rooftop. I was pinned, and my arm was screaming in pain. "I said," Saki said, "That I am here to talk."
"Then talk," Leo said.
"Leo!" I shouted. "You traitor! Do something about this!"
"I am not a traitor," Leo said, in a calm, hard voice. "But I want to hear what he's got to say. If he tries to hurt you seriously I will stop him." There was an emphasis on "will" that both Saki and I heard. "But if he's just going to sit on you while he talks, I see no need to intervene. If he speaks fast enough." Leo's eyes narrowed into slits, but he fell silent.
"Then hear this," Saki said, so very softly. "You know that I and those you have befriended are refugees from our home planet. What you do not know is what happened. One day, turtles, millions of our kind disappeared from the whole world. Sound familiar?"
It did sound familiar. "He's lying, Leo, make him let me up!"
Saki went on, implacable, just as if I hadn't spoken. "We had prophecies of the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings, coming after just such a disappearance. Myself, the others, none of us wanted to wait around for it. Who would? Judgment day? Bad if you're not absolutely sure of where you stand. Worse if you are absolutely sure. So we decided to run. To run away from God. And we came here. And now it seems the time has come to this planet. Its this planet's time, and God is coming. Do you know what I have done, turtles?"
"Built yourself a new ship so you can run away again?" I asked. My own voice sounded strained. But I hoped it sounded as hopeful as I felt.
"No." Saki said softly. "I have...resigned myself. I have made my peace with God. I have learned your name for the Messiah and prayed to both him and the name of the Messiah we were taught. I have asked forgiveness." He let me up. "There is a dark force that is your enemy. You call him Satan. We called him Shailal. They are the same. I have researched it, and they are the same. That is what you must watch out for."
I rolled to my back and stared at him. I wanted to be sick. Even Saki was spouting Mikey's rhetoric. Well, why not? The whole world had gone crazy, and there had to be something to hold on to. Maybe even for Saki. Me, getting on a ship and getting the hell out of there was sounding like a great idea. Maybe Don could make one. And if disappearances happened on our new planet, well, then maybe we could get on board with the party line. Only -- what if there weren't any more worlds to run to? What if all this was serious and we died in space? What if --
I sprung up, disgusted with myself for giving any of this seconds more thought than I had to.
"Thank you for telling us, Brother," Leonardo said solemnly.
I yelled in frustration and grabbed Leo by the arm. "Great. We've established you're both crazy and we've wasted our time." My wounds hurt. All of my wounds hurt. All I wanted was to go home and find a nice cozy couch to sleep on. I didn't want to think about any of this, any more.
We left Saki shouting, "Glory to God in the highest!" from his rooftop. The world really was coming apart. Our greatest enemy, rich, powerful, deadly and evil, had become some sort of curbside prophet.