Author's Notes:

Yay! is finally allowing me to upload my new chapter!

Thank you so much for reading (and in some cases reviewing) my fic! It means a lot! For all of those who reviewed, I have thank-you notes for each of you at the end of this chapter!

Ok, the rough rough rough draft of the entire story is complete! There are more chapters than I thought, and I'm bound to write a sequel. Why a sequel? Because, aspects of the plot don't resolve at the end of this fic! But let's save this discussion for a later date...

Disclaimer: I don't own the ninja turtles, but I reference them for non-profit fiction. The story belongs to me, and can only, and will only be used for non-profit uses.

The Greatest Gifts

Chapter 2: Outnumbered

Raphael examined the fractured Shell Cell cradled in his hand. Good job, hot-head, he mentally scolded himself. Way to freakin' go, now you couldn't call for help, even if you wanted to...

This is what happened when he was impulsive, and his reactions were devoid of thought... which was practically all the time, though he was reluctant to admit it. Raphael sighed in frustration, and critically analysed his actions from the past few minutes. He slipped into his memory of the event...

Raph was hiding on a flat rooftop, and carefully sneaking along its edge. He was intrigued by the spectacle bellow. On one side of an abandoned parking lot, waves of darkly-clad ninjas were huddled together. On the opposite side lay a series of dark vehicles, lined protectively by dozens of men adorned with expensive black suits. The motives behind this enormous meeting currently eluded Raphael. He also had yet to catch a glimpse of the passengers inside the cars. However, Raphael understood the significance and magnitude of this gathering, and had subsequently undertaken the task of reconnaissance, hoping to bring back some sort of beneficial information to his family.

It was no easy task. Even passive observation was extremely dangerous, considering the magnitude of enemy ninjas in the vicinity. He could also safely assume that his enemies were secretly patrolling the area. He could be discovered by guards at any given moment. They wouldn't hesitate to use Raphael's isolation from his brothers to their advantage. The turtle had to take this situation very seriously, and so he immersed himself in deep concentration, summoning up every ounce of expertise residing in his body and mind. At that moment in time, Raphael surpassed even his own level of skill in the art of ninjitsu, the art of invisibility. Master Splinter would have been impressed.

Suddenly, to his horror, an atrocious bleep pierced through the air, causing him to break his concentration and jump in his spot. His right hand snapped to his belt, grabbing the ringing Shell Cell. He then squeezed it in a blinding rage that only Raph could possess for inanimate objects. He cruelly crushed that cursed plastic communicator until it's beeps faltered comically, and were finally interrupted by a distinct cracking sound. Like most of Raph's violent outbursts, it had given the turtle a temporary rush of grim satisfaction. That Shell Cell's bleeping days were over.

Raphael snapped out of his memory. He had failed to find the answers he sought, and had instead relived an embarrassing moment. Very embarrassing, for a ninja. Raphael had only managed to make himself angrier. And what was he currently doing? He was still crouching on that same rooftop, reviewing what had just occurred. He hadn't accomplished anything except further acts of stupidity. He was a sitting duck. He might as well have presented his dead body on a silver platter to his enemies. He had to think! Think! What should he do?

Raphael thought further about the situation at hand. After breaking his communicator, the resulting rush of satisfaction had passed quickly, like it always did. All he was left with was a broken Shell Cell, no means to call for back-up, and a berating voice in his head that was angrily identifying everything he had done wrong. To top it all off, he had probably given away his position to his enemy. And so, Raphael found himself arguing with a voice inside his head. What should he have done differently?

You could have called for back-up before you started spying on the enemy, the voice inside his head pointed out. You know, like you were supposed to.

This was true. He couldn't blame the Shell Cell, or whoever had been trying to reach him. Raph was the only one to blame for this mess. The green ninja tucked the busted Shell Cell back into his belt. With bold determination, he slipped out his sais. What was done, was done. Time to go with the flow.

Don't you mean, time to tumble down the waterfall, after willingly throwing yourself into the rapids? Sometimes the voice in Raph's head was very annoying. Especially when it was right.

Raph closed his eyes, and held his breath. His ears reached out and combed the rooftop, dissecting every little detail and sound within range. He heard... a tormented wind... a low murmuring floating up from the gathering ninjas... the pounding of his own heart... a nearby foot scrapping against a pebble...

Raph's eyes shot open. He twirled his sais until their points hugged the insides of his wrists, and their blunt handles extended from his tensed fists. Yup, his cover was definitely blown. Raph grimaced, and slowly let out his breath. He tried to clear his mind, but failed horribly. Thoughts leaked through his unstable mental defences, Donnie needs to install a "silent mode" on these damn Shell Cells, or else I'm gonna to start leaving mine at home.

With a low growl, Raphael spun around to face his attackers. They were ninjas, dressed exactly like the ones he had been monitoring. At this close range, the turtle easily recognised the emblems embroidered onto their dark costumes. They were the Foot Clan. A few of them seemed surprised that the turtle had heard their approach; they must be new recruits.

The turtle wasn't surprised to see the Foot Clan. Sure, Shredder had been crushed at the pier last summer. That didn't mean they had squashed out the Foot Clan itself. The only thing that surprised Raphael was the sheer number of them assembling in the parking lot below. How could they rebuild so quickly, without any of the turtles noticing? Who was in charge of their regime?

More importantly, what were they up to? What sort of horrible plans had they in store for New York? Was tonight some sort of milestone in their grand scheme?

Raph didn't wait for his enemies to initiate the attack. He sprung forward and charged the closest Foot soldier. His opponent took a step backward, swinging his pair of numchucks defensively. He tried to whack Raph's head, but the turtle ducked and punched the man in his chest. The winded soldier stumbled backward, but was quickly replaced by a masked ninja equipped with a Bo.

Raph could hear movement at his back, as other foot soldiers encircled him. He was outnumbered, and there were too many to count. He knew he couldn't single-handedly win this fight.

It was the story of his life: outnumbered, alone, and bound to loose the battle.

Raph's eyes danced with avid fury, as he uncaged the endless storm of anger that warped his view of the world. He jumped into the air, and vividly kicked a ninja's shoulder, sending him sprawling across the rooftop. As soon as Raph landed, he carried the motion so that he squatted low to the ground, rescuing his head from a swiping Bo. Still crouched, the turtle thrust his right leg backward, cracking the shins of the ninja behind him. He heard the human fall to the ground. Raph's left hand steadied himself on the concrete, as he swung the same leg around to his front, sidesweeping enemies off their feet in the process.

Raph vaulted to his feet. He faced a soldier to his right, and kicked him in the gut. No time to watch the man double over in pain. He turned around again, and struck a ninja's face with the blunt side of his sai. There were so many of them. It was all he could do to strike at them one at a time, as they popped up from every direction. His instincts became chopped sentences, as he tried to keep up with his enemy's assault. Punch the ninja on the right. Duck. Kick the one behind. Parry to the left. Forward roll. Evade the gliding axe. Block the kick to your plastron. It seemed like he could barely hit his attackers hard enough to disable them. He definitely couldn't spare enough time to disarm anyone. All he could do was prolong the inevitable.

Raph could not see his enemy's faces, and their eyes were shrouded by wire mesh sewed into their masks. Still, he knew very well what they were thinking; he could smell their bloodlust. They wanted him dead, and with their superior numbers, they could easily get their wish. It was time for severe countermeasures. The turtle-in-red was going take these ninjas down with him. As many of them as possible.

Raphael and his brothers disliked drawing blood. Their style of ninjitsu taught the art of evasion, and disablement of the enemy. It wasn't focused on killing. Raph knew it wasn't honourable to seriously injure these brainwashed kids. Yet, the Foot Clan were criminals, and their youth's innocence was fleeting. Killing was the turtles' last option, but they would do so without hesitation, if it was required of them.

Sometimes, the turtles had no choice.

Raph twirled his sais around, so that their points protruded between clenched fingers. He leapt at the soldier in front of him, soaring fluidly through the air. His feet landed on a chest that caved in easily to his forceful attack. Raphael kicked off the human powerfully, and flew even higher into the air. He twirled impressively in a controlled spin that mimicked a figure skater. His feet came into contact with several heads, knocking enemies unconscious, then eventually he landed gracefully on the ground.

Pivoting to the left, he lashed out with his sais, and cut heavily into a man's chest. Crimson droplets flew through the air and splattered the adjacent soldiers. Raph turned to his right, rage penetrating deep into his core. He wasn't entirely sure if the anger was directed at the ninjas he fought, the Foot Clan's brainwashing leaders, or the infuriating disappointment in himself. It was probably a mixture of all three.

Raph thrust out his sais and gashed a man's arm, causing the gasping human to drop his katana. With an angry snarl, Raph dove into a back flip, his muscular legs flailing, and his feet bruising everything they came into contact with. When his hands roughly met the cement rooftop, the handles of his sais dug painfully into his hands. Raph relished the momentary pain. His throat released a disturbingly bloodthirsty scream while he returned to his feet.

He had barely just landed, when a powerful kick struck the back of his shell. Raph stumbled forward, and desperately tried to reattain his balance. He saw a Bo swing toward his chest. Raph twisted his body to the side, trying to dive out of the way, but the other ninja was too fast. The Bo smacked him on the left shoulder, and a searing pain tore through his body, coursing up his neck and freckling his vision with white stars. With a numb left arm, the turtle turned toward the clever ninja and pitched himself forward. His right sai plunged into the man's shoulder, and with morbid gratification, the turtle kicked the impaled man off his weapon.

Raphael ignored his injured appendage, and continued fighting. It seemed that every fallen enemy soldier was replaced by two more. It didn't take a rocket scientist to calculate that the turtle's odds were very slim. Raph needed to rethink his strategy. Better yet, he needed to actually come up with a strategy.

For a brief moment, a voice in Raph's head interrupted his staggering concentration. Maybe it was the pain from his injury playing tricks on him, but he didn't think so. The voice spouted bitterly, Why not let them take you. Go down in a blaze of glory. End your pain, all your pain. Isn't that what you want?

This was supposed to be his birthday. What had Splinter said before he left the lair, something about being a gift to his brothers? Yeah, right. He wasn't a gift, he was more of a curse. And now, for his brother's birthday, he would present them with his dead body. What a loving gesture.

Raph didn't know what he wanted anymore. Self-loathing and hatred consumed his thoughts, as he increased the violent rapidity of his onslaught. He let out a scream twisted with anguish as he rushed toward an enemy ninja who's confidence stood apart from the others. The man regally held an intricately crafted katana, carefully polished and sharpened, unlike the Foot Clan's usual crude replicas. The man's poise seemed to challenge Raphael to a battle that extended past the group effort of his fellow clan-members. Raphael readily accepted.

Raph's sais eagerly met the other ninja's sword, and the collision of their steel weapons resounded singingly over the chaos of the battle. The turtle deflected the swordsman's blade with his right sai, and tried to drive his other sai into the man's stomach. His opponent twisted away from the weapon's spiked tips, easily dodging the turtle's attack. Raphael bit his lip as he jabbed the soldier with the handle of the sai instead. The impact transformed the numbness in his injured arm into agony. With watering eyes and a sharp breath, Raph hesitated for only a moment.

All his enemies needed was a moment. From behind, a ninja struck the turtle's legs with a Bo, and Raph's knees buckled. The turtle managed to turn his fall into a half-controlled ninja roll, and narrowly avoided the Kanata rushing to meet his neck.

That swordsman was good. Really good.

Raphael had known his fate from the beginning of the battle, yet it was just dawning on him that he was loosing. For a while, he had almost felt as though he had the upper hand, but he now knew that was only an illusion. He was hurting, tiring, and succumbing to his enemy's bombardment. Death was one thing; Raph always accepted that he would die. He even anticipated that he would perish at a young age.

However, loosing was a different matter altogether.

Raphael felt flames being unleashed from deep within, engulfing his body. Flames that had haunted his soul and polluted his mind for as long as he could remember. Flames that fed on his grief and nourished his pain. Flames that threatened to devour Raphael's sanity, loosing himself to the overbearing darkness that plagued his nightmare-ridden sleep. Flames that were so overwhelmingly intense in their blinding blaze, that they made Raph's temper seem like a gentle stroll in the sunlight. Abhorrent flames that chilled Raphael's blood with such a harrowing terror, that he frantically struggled to subdue them, smother them, and suppress them, whenever shadow blackened his thoughts.

Right now, with all his other resources exhausted, those flames were all that Raph had left.

Though these flames weren't real fire, they still burnt and ravaged his body. Yet, from these flames Raph gathered further strength, drawing from a source that was only attainable when he lost his frail grasp on sanity. His mind was lost to negativity, and his reckless movements adopted a fiery ferocity that even surprised himself. He couldn't surpress the galling pain in his left arm, as he had been taught. Still, he refused to favour the arm, or show any sign of weakness. Even while every movement aggravated his arm with a burning spasm that even scathed his chest, side and neck with inflamed distress.

Physical pain was nothing compared to the devastating torment boiling within.

His physical afflictions were almost a refreshing relief, or at least a distraction.

Raphael's renewed efforts helped him fight... for a short while. Unfortunately, soon his enemies were increasingly landing more hits. His muscles ached with tired complaint, and his bruises and injured arm were screaming their grievances. His face was stretched with strain, as the battle visibly took it's toll. His skin glistened with the sheen of sweat mixed with the blood of his enemies. He was pretty sure none of those crimson stains were his own...

I've lost, and I'm going to die, the thought leapt to his mind, shortly after a numchuck struck Raphael across the forehead. His vision sparkled with red and white electric flashes, as he forcibly willed his legs to continue working under his command. Half-blinded, he managed to kick the numchucker hard enough to knock him safely away. As Raph brought his leg back down, a pair of ninjas simultaneously attacked from his left and right, striking his sides with blunt weapons. He didn't even notice the type of weapons, nor did he see the ground as his face hurtled toward it.

Had he reached his demise? He seemed to remember being in similar situations before. Incredibly similar. Many times. He recalled that he had fearlessly stared into the face of death on each of those occasions. Yet, he had survived each event. How had he survived? The memories were too incomplete, too blurry. Was this time different than the others? It seemed strangely fitting that he should die on his birthday.

As quickly as those flames had been ignited, they extinguished. Raphael accepted his defeat. He acknowledged his fate. He sensed the cold embrace of darkness, he felt his suffering dissipate, and he hardly noticed as his awareness faded into the background.

His life started to flash before his eyes. Memories of his brothers and friends flowed freely in his mind. He remembered fondly watching Mikey from afar, when his brother was absorbed in his comic books... he felt himself sparring competitively with Leonardo... He saw Donatello trying to teach Raphael how to program a VCR... He caught a glimpse of himself destroying that very same VCR in frustrated anger... He pictured the first time he had met Casey Jones, and remembered how much the guy had pissed him off... He recalled his brothers' first real battle; they had gone topside, saved April O'Neal, and Raph had lost a sai...

Suddenly, Master Splinter dominated his visions. Raph could feel his father caressing his head, as he always did during the rare occasions that Raphael broke down in tears. The turtle felt his own hands stroking his sensei's bristly fur as he hugged his father in return. Raphael never cried in front of anyone else, and was only openly affectionate with his father.

His sensei became a prominent presence in his mind, and his flashbacks ceased altogether. He recalled his father's words, spoken earlier in the evening.

You are gifts to each other, and to me.

Master Splinter... his brothers... his friends...

He indeed was a curse to them all, wasn't he? He was a reckless hothead, an arrogant jerk, a short-tempered loner, a freak amongst freaks. A curse to his family. They actually cared for him---they had to, after all you can't choose family---and he never ceased to hurt them. They loved him, even while he taunted death, and hung precariously on the edge of a bottomless abyss.

But, a gift? No. He wasn't a gift. He could never be considered a gift. Would they be better off when he was dead? Probably not. They would only be better off if he had never existed, but he couldn't undo that. He was alive, he was part of their lives, and his death would bring them pain. His own suffering was worthless compared to their pain.

He had to live. For his family. Not for himself, but for those who loved him. Those who cared if he lived or died. It was the only gift he could offer.

His gift to his brothers was... that he didn't kill himself, whether by his own hand, or through his negligent actions. Though, right now he had to pull himself together before he failed them all completely... He had to try. Do his best. No, better than his best.

Raph's vision cleared, and he finally noticed that he was laying on the ground, while the foot clan delivered kicks to his limbs and torso, along with the occasional blow to his head. How long had he been like this? It couldn't have been too long, because he was still conscious. In fact, it was simply miraculous that he was not unconscious, though there was a distinct ringing and buzzing in his ears. His hands gripped the ground, and with a load grunt, he lifted his upper body, looking up at the enemy ninjas towering over him. He felt a brutal kick to his underbelly, and he was knocked back onto the ground. With a husky moan, he tried to lift himself again.

He looked up just in time to see the swinging katana, soaring toward his neck.

To Be Continued...

Notes to Reviewers:

pacphys: hehe, thanks for your encouragement, and for cheering Leo on! Leo's always facing great responsibilities. Let's hear it for the brave fearless leader!

leo oneal: thank you! I'm happy your liked the chapter about Leo! I've taken your kind threat (to not kill the turtles) into careful consideration, hehe! The Turtles asked me to thank you for your kindness in looking out for them, and Raph is currently giving me a distrusting look! I think they will try and escape to your house tonight, where they feel safer! Hope you keep reading!

Sassyblondexoxo: It could have been so easy to write a small, simple fic, where Leo rushes to Raph's side, only to find his brother perfectly healthy and free from harm. This would have been followed by a brotherly bonding moment, with lots of "awwwwws", and warm fuzzy feelings. But, this isn't that type of story, and I'm not that type of author. ) Hey, speaking of warm and fuzzy feelings, thank you for your review! I'm glad I got that eery mood across. Hope you like the rest of the story.

misterfooch: hehe! Thanks, your review has left me in awed silence! I hope my story didn't peak with that first chapter. Hopefully the other chapters won't disappoint you! crosses fingers

BlueRaven: Thanks, I'm glad this plot is a success! Relieved, as well. I'm apprehensive about this first TMNT fic! This new chapter obviously answered your question, but I can give you more information. There will be chapters focusing on each four turtles, at least one each. There will even be a Splinter-centric chapter! Each four turtles will experience inner-reflection, and will get their chapters told in the "centric" third-person, if that makes sense... So far, it looks like most of the chapters will be equally Leo and Raph centric, cuz they are my favs!

jigsaws231: Wow, thank you. I don't know if I'm a good writer, but I like to think I'm on my way to becoming one! As for the plot... it is thriving with a life of it's own, and seems to have gotten too big for this simple fic!

Pi90katana: Yay! That's the best compliments I've gotten thus far! dances does the hussle is unsure how to do the hussle I try very very hard to get the characters just right. I study the movies when I watch them, lol! Sometimes I read far too much into their characters and actions...

The REAL Cheese Monkey: hehe, that's a wicked name you've got there! I'm glad you liked that fight scene, I don't know if I can ever write a better fight scene. Then again, when there's only a handful of bad-guys to fight, and it's not as hectic as an ambush, the descriptions flow a lot easier, don't they? Thanks lots!

Ramica: Thank you! I'm so critical of the turtles staying in character, I would hate to stray from it myself! Your kind words make me blush, thanks lots! I'm trying very hard! Lemme know the moment I stray from their characters, or when my writing deteriorates! I really appreciate all input!

Capt Kablooey: It is hard being a ninja. Even harder when you are a mutant ninja, outcasted from society, with only a handful of other mutants and friends to help you, and especially when you have enough enemies to fill a small island... as this chapter demonstrates! Poor Raph, all the fan fic writers are so "mean" to him! He takes sooo much "abuse"!