So…I got the distinct impression that if 'Leon' were real you all would have been plotting cruel and unusual deaths for him… Excellent
I am in awe at how well this story is doing, and here I thought I was doing a lousy plotline. Granted, I would have done this story anyway and put it up just because. But the reviews make me excited to do more…
So, despite the teasing I got from my friend about doing this, I'll thank all the reviewers again cause you guys do make writing this story worthwhile…
FYI: In case you guys didn't know, Raphael's character was totally inspiered by the Wolverine from X-Men, right down to the sais. (If you ever watch the the new cartoon, you'll see that sometimes he holds his weapons like Wolverine unsheaths his claws, uncanny, isn't it?)
Now an end to the boring stuff and on with the good stuff!
Chapter 4
The Replacement-'Unwanted Houseguests'
"Hey Donny, you know that saying about fish and houseguests, how both of them stink after three days?"
Donatello looked up from his laptop to Raphael, "Yeah?"
"They should change the 'fish' to 'turtle.'"
Donatello snicked at the joke. It was true, as Leon has not left the lair in three days…literally. Don suspected it might have been due to the injuries that he had, as he spent most of the time sleeping. But he was not a happy houseguest at any rate. He never talked to them, aside from that first night. He always made faces at the food they had, but ate them anyway. He always muttered snide comments about pretty much everything in the lair, but yet he acted liked he lived there from the way he would just pick up the ramote to watch t.v. or even using the dojo. The dojo thing is what bothered the turtles most though: It was like seeing the ghost of Leonardo doing katas, but this one was anything but their lost brother.
All in all, it was not a happy household, they even begged Master Splinter to kick him out, but the rat stubbornly shook his head. He knew Leon was not popular here, yet he wanted him to stay. He felt, somehow, that this young turtle could be the savior of their torn up family, if only he would stop being so cold and snobbish, and just open up. None of the turtles, of course, saw it that way…
"Man, I wish he would just leave! I never get to see my shows anymore! I'm missing out on Teen Titans." Mikey whined. He and his brothers were in the kitchen sitting at the dining room table, as they didn't want to be in the same room as the unpopular turtle, who was currently watching the tube.
"Why don't you just ask him for the remote?" Don told him, not looking up from the laptop.
"I tried. He won't listen to me, I even yelled at him to give me the ramote, but he doesn't respond. It's like he turns deaf when I'm around…"
"It's not just you, Mikey, he does it to everyone here. Of course, I can see why he would want to ignore you." Raph told his brother teasingly. Mikey just gave him a glare in response. Don decide to step in before a fight could insue, even though it would be a welcome change as they had not done that since Leo disappeared.
"So, what does he watch?" He asked his goofy brother, eyes still focused on the computer screen.
Mikey groaned, "That's the worst part, all he does is watch the news channel. He especially likes to see the stocks and bonds report, which is about as exciting as watching mold grow on the wall of the sewers."
Don looked up. "The stocks and bonds report, huh? That's interesting…" he said, trailing off thoughfully.
Mikey made a face. "Why is that?"
Don looked back at the computer screen, typing in something. "Because it means he got some kind of business to keep up. If he does, that is just one more thing I can use to find out who in the shell he is."
Raphael looked skeptical, "C'mon, Donny, you're seriously trying to find out about him on the net? There is no way in hell that can be possible."
Don simply smiled, "Oh, but it is. See he gave himself away a little that first night. The first was the drawl that came when he spoke. It must mean that he comes from somewhere in the southern states. My guess is Texas, but you can never be too sure."
Raph snorted, "Right, like you can find a mutant turtle that once resided in Texas. He won't even be considered a legal citizen, he must've hid out like the rest of us."
Don shook his head; "I don't think so. He mentioned he would like to be called 'Mr. Takada', which led me to believe he was taken in by a human family. Why else would he have mentioned a last name?"
Mikey scratched his beak, "I don't know, I thought he was talking about his alter ego or something." The comment got a snicker out of Raph, but Don didn't seem to have noticed it, or cared, his eyes still on the screen.
"His human family must have been prominent, because of his attitude. I noticed he likes to practice the martial arts by the way he uses the dojo everyday. It made me wonder if his family was also ninja…"
"So observant, aren't ya Donny?" Raph asked his brainy brother with a sneer.
Don just shrugged, "I'm a scientist, it's what I do best." He quipped back at him.
The silence from the living area meant that the turtle they were discussing had moved on to a different spot. The turtles decided to see what his royal shellback was doing. It turned out he was in the dojo again, this time using the practice dummy with the moveable arms. He was kicking and punching, and all that gave Raphael an idea.
"Hey you," he called out to the turtle "I challenge you to a sparring match, just you and me, right here in the dojo."
Leon stopped punching the dummy long enough to look at him, then resumed what he was doing with a "No."
This made Raph a little bit angry; okay, a lot angry and he charged at the unsuspecting turtle with unadulterated rage. Or was he unsuspecting? As soon as Raph reached Leon, he was already on the other side of the room next to Don and Mike. This was a shock to all three brothers as they didn't know how good Leon was, but it didn't stop Raph from trying again. He charged once more, sais out, ready to hit Leon right in the chest. But before he can reach his target, he found his sai deflected to the side and then felt an elbow to his face. He fell to the ground on his back, his cheekbone hurting, and he watched as Leon stepped on him to go back to the practice dummy. All the while, he muttered under his breath, "Amateurs."
Raph, of course, heard that, and was about to attack Leon again when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
It was Don, "Let him be." He advised him quietly.
"Did you not hear…?"
"Let it go, bro." Mikey told him, "We've got better ways to blow off steam tonight."
Raph looked at the clock on the dojo's wall, he realized it was 11 p.m., time to kick some sorry Dragon butts, or if they were lucky, some Foot instead.
He nodded to his brothers and in no time they were outside, away from the stifling atmosphere that was home, and proceeding to do their regular ninja exercises. They were all enjoying the night's cool breeze as they leapt from rooftop to rooftop, but it was disappointing when it seemed no action would go down tonight, though it was a Friday. The turtles were not upset, however, at least they got their frustrations out in the run, and as they jumped down to the ground, ready to head back to the nearest manhole cover, they heard a young man's voice call out:
"Ay, it's those turtle freaks!"
"And they is only three."
"Ain't this a special test or somethin'? To kill all the freaks an' we get a special reward or somethin'?"
The turtles turned around to see two Purple Dragons; new, as they looked like they were in their late teens and obviously very stupid because they didn't know what they were going up against.
"This is going to be fun." Raph simply stated, taking out his sais.
"Ay, where's the other freak? I thought they was four of you?"
His buddy snickered, "Prolly at home cryin' like a baby."
The other snickered too, "Or, maybe we be lucky that one is already dead…"
Raph was definitely seeing red now, no one was going to sit there and trash talk about his brother in front of him, and think they can get away with it. And before he knew it, his anger was taking over his body and his mind, and he felt himself leaping out at the still snickering teens. He didn't hear Don call out his name as he attacked; he didn't hear both of his brother's warnings as he reared his right arm back to strike out at them. All he knew was vengeance; sweet and bitter as chocolate and nothing would stop him from getting what he wanted…
Until a crowbar out of nowhere smacked the side of his head.
For the second time that night, Raph was on his back, after hitting his side on the wall of the shop that was closed down for the night. He felt dizzy as he tried to get up, and he heard his brothers fighting the reinforcements that came in to help the young punks in time.
"Well, well, well, look what we have here."
He felt himself being picked up by the shell, and when he finally got his eyes to focus, he saw he was face to face with Dragonface, one of the few heads of the Purple Dragons. The sneer on his face told Raphael that he was enjoying every second of this, and knew he was going to be tormented a little before they killed him. It made him feel pathetic; a sentiment that was echoed by Dragonface himself.
"It's so sad, the great, undefeatable turtles are going to die tonight by our hands. Ah, Saki is not going to be pleased, he always wanted to kill youse himself you know, and now we are going to do it for him. It's a good thing that leader of yours is out of the way, or else we wouldn't be having any fun." He told the raging turtle. Raph tried to fight back, to hit with everything he could muster, but suddenly realized his arms were pinned behind his back. He looked up to see the appalling grin of Two-Ton, the second biggest Dragon next to Hun, and he realized that it was he who picked him up. Raph turned to his brothers only to find that they too were pinned down much the same way he was, and he couldn't help them. The gruesome spikes, chains, and clubs all the gang members were holding gave him a horrible sense of foreboding. He and his brothers were going to die tonight, all because he acted too quickly and too rashly. One of the members proudly presented Dragonface the most biggest and nastiest of the clubs like it was something holy, and it probably was too as Dragonface swung the club upwards. Raphael closed his eyes, waiting for the pain that was to come…
But never did.
Instead, he heard an exclamation of "What the-?" before the perpetrator went down. He felt the guy holding him go down too, letting go of Raphael. As he turned around ready to fight, he saw that all the members of the Dragons, and there were more than thirty of them too, down on the ground. Some moaning, some twitching, and some were just not moving, period. This stunned Raphael, and before he can discern what had happened, he felt a hand pull him up and a voice saying, "Come on!" There was no need to tell him twice, he could hear the sirens that were coming, so he decided to follow his brother's footsteps, all the way into an alleyway between two abandoned buildings. Only there, once he felt sure he, and his brothers, was safe, he peeked around to see the police milling around the fallen bodies. It would have given him immense satisfaction if he had been the one to do the damage, but he didn't. So he wondered who could have helped them out when they were in such a tight spot, and was about to voice the question aloud when he heard someone say,
"It was me."
That soft drawl could only belong to one turtle, and Raph looked behind him to see Leon standing there, looking just a regal as his brother would have had he been standing there instead. It was just too bad he was not…
"I told you guys that you were amateurs." He told them all simply, his arms crossed on his plastron. Mikey gave a low, angry growl; a sound that was rarely heard from the fun-loving turtle. But with the adrenaline rush that came from the ambush and Leon's sudden appearance, it obviously put him in a bad mood. The insult just took the cake.
"Ya know, I was about to thank you for helping us, but now…" he drifted off, an unknown fire burning in his eyes.
"We were doing just fine without you, and would have gotten out eventually. So we didn't need your help." Don told the mysterious turtle, obviously very angry himself. Leon took no offense to that statement; he just stared at him instead. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he spoke again, no emotion evident in his voice.
"Sure you were fine, I guess you would be fine after you found yourselves six feet under, or better yet, just dumped somewhere to rot. You guys were horrible; it was like watching a badly choreographed dance take place. There was no organization, no structure, and you didn't even look around you to see if there was anyone waiting to ambush you. And your pathetic excuse for a leader would have led you all to your deaths if I hadn't came and saved your butts at the last minute." Leon shook his head, disappointment evident in his body language, "Splinter told me you guys were at the peek of you ninjitsu skills, but after tonight I'm beginning to wonder whether or not that was just fatherly pride speaking for you guys."
Those words could not have stung any more than if Leon had punched them all hard in the gut, but his words affected Raphael the most. How true they rung, he knew what he had done, what he should have done, to ensure that all their lives would be spared. He was beginning to wonder if this is what Leonardo had felt when something like this goes wrong, if it ever did, cause Raphael could hardly remember a time when his perfect brother ever failed. If Leo told him all the things he should have done right, well, he would have argued but ultimately would have had to agree with him on all those things that were pointed out. Coming from Leon though, a total stranger, it felt like a jab at his ninja skills, and that he wasn't about to take that. So Raph got up, slowly as he was still reeling from the injury from earlier, and started to stalk off.
"Raph?" Don asked gently, his eyes knitted together in concern.
"Leave me alone." Raph mumbled audibly.
"Where do you think you're going?" Leon demanded.
"None of your business!" Raph snapped; he was starting to act like Leo and it was irritating.
"Of course it's my business, I saw the crowbar earlier, you are in no shape to be walking around by yourself." Leon stated matter of factly.
"He's right, you might have developed a concussion." Don said, stepping forward to help his injured brother.
"Don't tell me you're starting to agree with him!" Raph growled, straining to get out of Don's grip. He stopped when he saw the sudden expression of fear on Leon's face.
"What?" He asked the suddenly nervous turtle. Leon was looking around him, obviously sensing danger, then he snapped back to them with a "We got to get back to the lair, now!"
"Wha-?" Raph asked, dumbfounded by the sudden change in mood. Don and Mike simply stared.
"Now!" Leon said, running for the nearest manhole cover. The urgency in his voice made the rest of the turtles follow behind, all of them wondering what could be so wrong at home.
