His True Love

Disclaimer: I deny any ownership of any adult or adolescent transformed shadow warrior chelonians.

Author's Note: Some of you readers might have noticed I uploaded first chapter of this twice. Thing is I had problems uploading first time got an error message saying it didn't upload. I waited for about five hours before checking ff.net. I know usually, new stories get posted very quickly in the Just In category but saw nothing of it, due to the error message I figured some thing truly might have gone wrong and my story was now bouncing around in cyberspace and I uploaded the story a second time.

Around eight thirty last night I noticed two up after all and did remove one but it just might take a bit to show. Sorry for any inconvenience or confusion.

This story is mostly Raph's and Sara's story so you will be hearing a lot from Raph. Don fans I can't promise how much you will hear from him but more then normal as his story is sort of a side story in the same time frame. Rama fans you might not get as much Rama as you are used to put trust me she's here and has her own side story. Think of Therefore.

Thanks for all the reviews now on with the tale.

Chapter Two – Shadows in The Night

RAPHAEL:

 I growled in rising irritation as I headed for the streets, not even bothering to slow down as I heard Leo calling after me. Splinter junior could just kiss my ass he had been bugging me about my behaviour ever since I had fallen out of bed at two in the afternoon, now an hour and a half later and he was still riding my back.

Sometimes I had to wonder how Karena put up with Mr. Perfect all the time.

I figured my only recourse to get away from him was to get out because if I stuck around I knew it would come to blows. I could only take so much of Leo.

Yeah we weren't as bad as we had been in our teen years I'll admit that much but once in a while we would still get on each other about somethin' and we'd go after each other pretty hard and fast like we had back then.

I wasn't really in the mood to listen to Leo any longer, and strangely enough I didn't want to kill him, not just yet at any rate but I was sure it was coming so I left.

I entered into the alley and made my way quickly to the fire escape that lead to the beckoning rooftops above.

I didn't have my usual disguise on, which meant mingling in a crowd of humans was out. I was jealous of people and that jealousy easily added fuel to my anger about humans and our whole sorry pathetic lot in life.

All right so we did have a few humans who weren't so bad and we called friends but those people were the exception to the rule and were far different from the sort of people I had to deal with on a nightly basis.

The drug addicts, the rapists, the muggers, the pimps, the users and abusers and the abuses just to name a few of the people that shaped my life and how I saw the world at large.

Even when we were in disguise keeping a low profile as we mingled on the streets in daylight hours I couldn't escape the fact that while I was foolin' the outside world there was no way I could kid myself into believing that I was no different then the general population.

Mingling topside only made me more aware of our differences and the fact that we had to remain no more then shadows. No one notices shadows except for little kids maybe. A shadow isn't heard and even when seen its ignored, it exist as part of life but easy to overlook.

That was all my brothers and I were. Shadows, we creped in shadows, we lived in shadows and used all the shadows around us to our advantage. No one was meant to see us or know about us and we could never hope to rise above being shadows.

When I got in this sort of mood, the kind of mood where I didn't even want to be around any body, Hell I didn't even want to keep my own self company when I was like this, I'd head for the rooftops and work out until I gained some peace of mind.

I didn't go into all that meditation crap; working out or fighting best reached my calming state.

The rooftops gave me perspective it was the only place I could rise above and look down.

I hated our life of hiding, hated living in the dark damp underground of the sewers, and hated our lives and our very existence.

Freak of nature, accident, green-skinned monster from the sewers call us what you will I've heard it all more times then I care to and in the end it was all the same.

My brothers might be able to cope and live with that kind of life style but I longed for something more and better. I doubted I could ever really be happy with my lot in life when I saw my brothers as only a reflection of my own isolation and torment.

No I didn't have any say in my life and if I could I would change a whole bunch of stuff that kept us all down beneath the streets forever looking in on and up at society at large.

I admit that I had a problem with my anger I wasn't going deny it. I had a lot of anger and an attitude problem and I was proud of it!

What I wasn't proud of though was sometimes how my world seemed to vanish in a haze of red. I couldn't control my anger. In my younger days I'd be just about willin' to kill even in a sparring match.

Yeah my life was pathetic, senseless and had very little direction or hope of it ever getting better cause when you got down to the facts of my life I knew that this was all that I could ever hope to get out of my life.

Ain't that a cheery thought? That you are stuck trapped in a useless existence with no way out and no way to make it better and the best that you can hope for is death by battle?

I guess if I had one ray of hope in life it was my niece Ramiela, that kid would end up fearing little and have an air around her of getting into some sort of trouble, I could tell that all ready just from the way she acted now.

Mike was kind of lucky to have Ramiela and it was almost impossible to ignore her. One couldn't ignore Ramiela because she wouldn't let ya.

I cared about my whole family, not that I let it show all that much, it would ruin my rep for one thing. But Ramiela was somethin' else again. She was that bright shining ray of light in an otherwise dreary world. If I spent more time around home now then I ever did before it was due to her.

Yeah I know when she was born I vowed to have nothing to do with her. Screaming stinking good for nothing baby!

But Ramiela hadn't realized it was my intention to ignore her, she would crawl after me. My name was one of her first words. And she was the only one I would let call me Raphie.

Yeah the little rug rat grew on me all right and she kept doing it too. I don't know quite how she did it where it all happened or when but happen it did. For years now I had felt honoured that it was me that she came to for things she couldn't or wouldn't tell her dad. I was her best friend up to the time she met Jessie and I was rather surprised she had been able to keep that from me. Considering how she told me all kinds of stuff about every thing else between wrestling, and roughhousing with me or convincing me to play some ball with her.

I relaxed as darkness settled down and around me night was moving in, there was a cool breeze blowing and it refreshed me a bit. I hadn't realized it had been getting so late, been far too busy jumping rooftops and doing katas to pay attention to the passing of time.

Pretty soon now I ought to head for home and get a bite to eat. I was feeling hungry but for a moment I just wanted to look around me at the city life below before returning home.

I never liked returning to the sewers.

Finally though I decided that I best go.

I started to head towards home keeping to the rooftops as much as I could on the way that way I wouldn't have to go down until the last moment.

I paused on the way down the fire escape as a car pulled into the alley, I froze and ducked back into the shadows it wasn't quite dark enough yet to totally feel safe where I was.

Something didn't feel right about this and I stayed where I was watching and waiting, hoping not to be seen in the growing darkness and wondering if my instincts were right on the fact that something was going down.

If so I was quite willing to break up the party.

I noticed one person get out of the car making his way to the trunk he unlocked it and took out something tossing it to one side.

I knew that wasn't garbage he was littering the alley way with, no this was really wrong and I was already moving fast to stop what ever was going on. Watching and waiting was getting me nowhere. That plus the fact I was never that big on being patient anyways.

Even as I made me move the one guy dived for the open car door and the car was soon screeching out of the back alley and onto the street.

I hit the alley a second or two too late which, did nothing to improve my overall good mood. I didn't normally misjudge my timing like that. I quickly scanned the alley trying to figure out what had been so ruthlessly tossed away.

Then I saw her. She had to have been the garbage they disposed of and I instantly felt my blood boil at the condition she was in.

She was a small woman about four five four six in height not much more then that, a mass of red hair, her body covered in cuts and bruises blood running all over from numerous knife wounds, she was unconscious and what little clothing she had on left little to the imagination and was also ripped apart and bloodied.

Wouldn't you know it? Just my luck the nearest hospital was too far away for help and making an emergency phone call wouldn't be much better.

The best bet for her was to take her on back home with me and get Don to patch up the worst of her wounds then if necessary one of us could get her to the hospital for further treatment later on.

I knew the low lifes who had left her here hadn't meant for her to survive this attack they wanted her dead. If that were the case, then if she survived she would continue to be in danger.

I narrowed my eyes; I didn't know what she had done that they felt it was necessary to treat her in this fashion.

What I did know though is if there one lesson I had taken to heart it was Splinter's rule that woman and children should never be hurt, with the only exception being unless a woman tried to hurt us first and then we were to use only what force was necessary to stop them. People who hurt woman and children could get me going faster then any other type of scum alive.

Those bastards might think they got away with the attack on her and they might have even gained some pleasure in doing it too. How ever my pleasure was going to come when I caught up to them and made them pay for their attack on her.

I was going to see to that one way or another but first I better make sure that their plans to kill her were ruined.

TBC