Author's Note:

Hey, everyone! Long time no see! We are glad to be back with the next installment of our Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle series and are going crazy working on the third installment...hint hint! Katt B. wanted to post the chapters up herself but sadly she is on vacation this week and told me that she wouldn't be able to post them herself. So to make up for the long wait we made you all pull through, she has asked me to upload the first three chapters as an apology.

Please enjoy and let us know what you think!

-Ravyne

*DISCLAIMER: WE DO NOT OWN TMNT!*

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Strike of the Dragon

PART 2

1

3-1: "Within the Woods"

The hooded figure lands and ducks close to the ground, grass clean up to her knees, in the small clearing. Two other hooded figures land behind her, one male and the other female about her height. They all stay close to the dirt as the black helicopter above them loudly pulls away higher into the air, the propellers chopping through the evening noisily, and disappears over the trees.

As it goes, the first hooded figure stands up and goes to the top of the hill, staring out at the darkening sky line of the city beyond. Behind her, the male figure steps up beside her and grabs her shoulder.

"Ready to go?" he asks.

The girl behind them is busy typing away on a small device, ignoring them both for a moment as she reads something on the screen, "Sensors are showing some heavy activity there still. It's been a while since the invasion, but there's still unrest in a couple of hot spots."

The hooded female at the top of the hill smiles a bit, the slightest hint pulling at the corner of her mouth, "Well, we'll just have to avoid the hotspots then, won't we?"

"Idiot," the other girl snarls, "We shouldn't even be going in there in the first place. It's suicide without back up."

"You two are the back up," the first girl responds just as sharply, nodding her head at the silhouette of the city across the water, "I have to make sure."

"Then let's go before you two go at each other again and I get stuck cleaning it up," the guy groans.

Both of the girls glance at each other before turning back towards the city line, blazing against the setting sun. Why wouldn't they go in the first place? Both of them like a little bit of a challenge.

"Ugh, they actually live down here?" the taller girl whines, pulling her gas mask farther up her nose in a failed attempt to rid herself of the fumes coming off the sewer water. The slightly shorter girl in front of their group shushes her as they silently creep through the eerily quiet tunnels below the city. The streets above had been overrun by mutated humans and trees while Kraang bots of all levels patrolled mercilessly on every corner. It was impossible to move about without being seen, so they quickly ducked down the nearest man-hole to avoid the sentries.

Personally, none of them had expected the invasion to leave things this bad. Then again they hadn't been able to get here right when it happened to help so things must've accelerated in their absence.

"Gaa, this is so unsanitary!" the taller girl hisses again, kicking something unmentionable off her boot, sloshing water loudly against the stone.

The girl at the front and her male companion both shush her again as something up ahead of them moves. They all duck against the wall, letting the shadows hide them from view and they wait it out. Whatever it is finally moves off and they glance around the corner, their hoods falling farther over their faces.

A Kraang bot moves out of view.

"They're down here too?" the taller girl groans.

"Do you ever stop complaining? We've been through worse."

The guy pinches them both on their arms, cutting off their argument as he moves forward again down a different tunnel to elude the Kraang bot entirely. Both girls glare at each other before following after him. Soon they find themselves in a subway tunnel, abandoned long ago by…anyone.

The male figure raises a knife from inside his long black coat and hurls it through the air, splitting open the heads of two Kraang that patrol outside a large entrance lined with turnstiles.

The smaller girl takes off quickly, nearly leaving her companions behind, to leap over the dead machines and jog into the room beyond.

It's all destroyed, the spiral ramp from above fallen from the roof, game machines hurled around from an obvious struggle. The smaller girl stops cold, shifting her gaze around the empty, dust filled, deserted lair. The male comes up behind her and grabs her arm, shaking her from her thoughts.

She throws herself mentally out of her mental shambles and glances over at him.

"Don't get overwhelmed. Focus on what needs to be done," he tells her.

The girl nods and throws back her hood. Silver-white hair falls free over her left shoulder in long smooth strands held by a simple red band. Her bangs fall over her pale blue, blind, left eye as her amber right eye takes in what is left of what had once been her home.

"You know what to do," Ryu tells them, her face determined, "Search the place for any signs of them. I want to know if they're alive."

"And if they're not?" the other hooded girl asks dully.

The guy throws a glare at her, shutting her up.

They all split up to search the place, Ryu taking the back rooms where the turtles had slept and finding them all empty. She'd never seen their rooms before and she would love to take the opportunity to be nosy but being in the underground belly of a city that's been invaded by aliens… It's just not the time right now.

As she heads for the lab, the other girl comes out of the kitchen and crosses the room to meet her, "They must've been keeping some kind of animal in that freezer of theirs 'cause there're claw marks all along the inside of it."

"Was there anything in it?" Ryu asks, stopping suddenly to face her.

The girl tosses her arms up in disbelief, "Besides normal stuff you'd keep in a freezer? Uh, no. Why would anyone in their right mind put an animal in a freezer? That's cruel."

"No that's ice cream kitty."

"Wha-?"

"Nevermind," Ryu cuts her off, rubbing her chin in thought. "Either ice cream kitty got out or they took her with them."

"You think they left?"

"There's a high chance they did; the cat has to stay cold. This place was obviously attacked by the Kraang, though I'm not sure how they found them, so they would've run to a safe house or second base somewhere," Ryu says.

"Which is…where exactly?" the other girl asks impatiently.

She pauses for a second, dropping her eyes in defeat, "I don't know."

The other girl groans, kicking the door open to the lab with her foot carelessly, "I thought you knew these people?!"

"Keep your voice down!" the male hisses at her, meeting them at the empty lab. "I didn't find anything in that other room, but it's a mess. The tree is toppled over and the leaves are dying off. It won't last very long."

Ryu hangs her head sadly. If only she'd been here, none of this would've happened. She could've stopped this…

"Hey, what's this stuff?"

She looks up across the room as the other girl is nosily throwing stuff around on the tables. She's holding up a canister of familiar green goo and Ryu hisses in alarm, rushing towards her, "Put it down!"

"Why?" the other girl asks as Ryu snatches it from her and shoves it into the metal cabinet that acted as the storage for the other chemicals and lab equipment needed for any experiments that happened to be going on.

As she closes the door, she hesitates a few seconds, spotting the few places on the shelves that are empty. Ryu swings her eyes to the table against the wall beside it and notices the first aid box is missing too.

"They definitely ran," she points at the spot where the box used to sit, "He took his first aid kit."

"Maybe the Kraang took it," the other girl groans, "You did say that one of these people was uber smart right? Maybe these aliens found something in it they liked and just took it."

"I really wish you'd stop being so negative," Ryu glares at her.

"That wasn't negative. Negative would be me continuously telling you that you're wrong about them being alive and that they were all killed off by the aliens or experimented on and turned into monsters."

Ryu is about to hit her but the guy with them pulls her up by her waist and drops her a few feet away by a work table, "Cool it. Both of you need to stop getting side tracked and keep looking. If they ran, we need to find out where."

Ryu stares down at the table he'd dropped her by. A familiar piece of metal stares back up at her and she smiles. "I think I can figure out where they are," she says, lifting the head of their once former robot comrade. Looking to the right of it, she reaches down to flip open an old folder to find out what's inside. It's just what she wants to find: blueprints.

"How?" the guy asks as he and the other girl come to her sides to stare down at the blueprints with her.

"By reviving an old friend," she responds as she sets the head down and pulls off the bag from her back, "With my own personal tweaks, of course."

"We're going to be here for a while, aren't we?" the other girl whines.

"Possibly," the guy grins.

The other girl pulls off her gas mask, stuffing it into the pocket of her long black coat, and groans loudly in frustration, "Wake me up when we have a plan please!"

Ryu sits down on top of the table, pulling out the welder left behind on the other side of the lab, and slips on the welding mask collecting dust on top of the tool kit. She tosses a smile over to the girl by the wall who's glaring at her, "I always got a plan. It's called adapting."

"Well, when you're done 'adapting', can we please go hotwire a car and get out of this ground zero city?"

"Sure, but we've got to make a quick stop on the way," Ryu shoots back.

"Where?" the other girl asks, raising an eyebrow in question.

Grinning, she nods her head, flipping the mask down over her face, and lights the welder with a sharp snap. It flares to life and she gets to work.

The van stops the second it pulls onto the dirt driveway and they all stare out the front windshield at the distant farm house across the clearing.

"You've got to be kidding me," the girl growls, glaring through her sunglasses. "Are you sure that tin can's right?"

Ryu leans over the front seat to get a good look at the house, glancing once down at the ipad-sized screen in her hands. The screen is transparent except for the blue and green map images glowing across it. When she looks back up at the house, she nods, "That's what Metalhead's showing me and my tech's never wrong."

"Check it again. I think it is."

"You always think it is," Ryu glares at her.

"Would you two stop?" the guy moans from the passenger seat. "You've been going at it since we left the city."

"Well then you shouldn't have invited her," Ryu answers with a sarcastic grin as she drops back into her own seat to continue poking around on the small screen.

"The Dragons told her to come. I'm not going to argue with them."

The other girl flicks her designer sunglasses off and glares at the old farm house with dark brown eyes. Lining those eyes are the same Marks Ryu sports on her body only these decorate the corners of her eyelashes like the ancient Egyptians used to paint up their eyes. Her Marks are a few shades darker than Ryu's, having to stand out against her olive skin tone, but they still bare the same faded look that makes them appear like a part of her own skin rather than like tattoos. A few stray dots of the Marks spot around the corners of the main tatts, making them look more exotic like the marks of a leopard.

"I hate my life," she grumbles.

"Get over it. Let's move," Ryu tells her flatly.

The girl puts the van back into gear and drives the vehicle down the rest of the driveway. They park it beside the other van and hop out. Ryu walks a few steps across the yard towards the front of the house but pauses outside as her comrades go inside.

The earth stirs under her boots, singing up to her. She crouches down and threads her fingers into the grass. The song is fearful, hesitant. Her eyes lift to the large barn across the yard, the moonlight highlighting the world around her. Night had fallen a while ago, giving way to a beautiful full moon for them to drive by.

Now though, it only feels oddly eerie.

Her comrades come out of the house a moment later.

"Hey, no one's here!" the guy calls to her.

Ryu's eyes narrow, barely registering his words as she scans the dark woods farther out. They both come to her side, following her gaze.

"What's up?" the guy asks.

The other girl crosses her arms, annoyed, and replies sarcastically, "Yeah, please tell us. We're bored."

The guy smacks her head gently.

Ryu opens her mouth, parting her suddenly dry lips, "Something's wrong."

"Yay, barely got out here to the middle of nowhere and now this place is turning into one of those terribly cliché horror movies," the other girl groans, throwing her arms into the air.

"What are you grumbling about?" the guy rolls his eyes at her.

"Old creaky farm house, menacing antique barn, dark, creepy woods…need I say more? Might as well go get a Great Dane and paint the van in the 'Mystery Machine' colors. Next thing you know, an axe-wielding lunatic is going to try and scalp us all for his dinner menu."

Ryu stands up and they both stare at her as if she's crazy.

"What?" the girl asks seriously, "Too dark?"

"You've got issues," Ryu shakes her head.

"Thanks," the girl smirks at her mockingly.

A scream pierces the night and they all start. Ryu stares off above the trees as birds scatter in terror further off into the woods. "That was April," she realizes.

"Who?" the guy and girl ask in union.

"Come on," Ryu punches her fist into the ground and the earth rips up with a loud, thunderous crack! Her comrades leap up onto the floating mound and she lifts it higher into the air until they're flying over the trees. Her eyes scan down into the dark woods below her frantically, searching for anything that moves. Besides the birds they scare loose from the tree tops below them, nothing else stirs.

A break in the trees allows the moonlight to filter down below it and Ryu uses that time to really strain her eyes for something familiar.

"There!"

She jerks around as the other girl points off below them on the other side of the earth mound. Ryu goes to her side quickly and looks over the edge. An old shack stands there silently until something tears out of the door and a flash of yellow zips through the trees.

"That's April," Ryu says, crouching down to place her hand on the center of the mound she's lifted from the earth. The mound responds, sinking through the air until they're closer to the tree tops. "I've got to aim this right."

"Aim?" the guy asks.

"Yeah, I can't drop this down into the trees and fly around 'cause I'm not that good, but I can drop it on a target if I time it right."

"Well, you might want to make this thing a little bigger because from what I can see from here, whatever is following her is waaaay bigger than your little block of dirt," the other girl points out.

"Negative," Ryu grumbles under her breath, "Keep me posted."

"I'm watching," the guys calls from his place at the edge in front of her.

A second later, Ryu spots a taller than average tree standing directly in their line of flight. There's no way she can fly over it in time. It's either swing around it or hit it. "I've got to swerve!"

"Don't or we'll lose them," the guy argues.

"Do you not see that tree?!"

"Trust me," he calls back.

The tree gets closer and closer with every passing second. Ryu's eyes widen in panic; they're going to hit it, no doubt about it.

"Now!"

"What?!" the other girl screams.

"Now!"

Ryu obeys him and swings the front of the mound straight up, giving them a good enough leverage to jump off backwards and fall towards the trees. They use the tree limbs to slow their decent but Ryu slips on the last one and is forced to grab it with her hands in order to keep from becoming a pancake on the forest floor. A second later, her earth mound falls to the ground with a heavy boom, smashing whatever was under it. They all jump to the ground and come out into the moonlight to get a better look at the damage. From under the mound, something has splattered out from the impact sight; thankfully it's not red.

"Ew, what is that?" the other girl says in disgust.

"It looks like some kind of chunky, chewed up, nasty cereal…"

Both girls throw him sickened looks and he just grins.

"Gross!" Ryu chokes.

The ground moves, the mound shifts. They all stare in horror as the dead comes back to life and rises through the top of the mound as if it's nothing. It turns on them and raises a sharp, gleaming sword in its hand. Ryu's eyes turn to the sword in a flash; that sword doesn't belong to this thing.

That's Leo's sword, she thinks, He couldn't have taken it from Leo unless he's…

Someone comes running up behind them but before they can turn around the other girl points at the sword and scoffs, "Ha! Axe-wielding lunatic! I win."

Ryu glares at her, "That's a sword."

"OMGA," the other girl rolls her eyes, "It's got a sharp blade and it can kill somebody. Same thing."

"Uh…no, it's not," Ryu argues.

"Seriously, you two are going to do this right now?" the guy groans. The two girls ignore him going into a heated argument as the monster finally frees itself from the mound of crushing dirt and starts stalking towards them with the sword. "Ugh, nevermind," the guy flips back his black jacket, throwing off the hood, and pulls out two lethal looking guns from holsters at his thighs.

His hair is pale blonde, pulled back into a pony-tail that reaches his shoulder blades. A small section of it is a darker brown, braided in a thin strand against the rest of it. His eyes are a cool shade of blue, like the azure waters of the Caribbean.

Someone taps Ryu's shoulder and she turns to find April, Mikey, Donnie, Casey, and Leo all staring at her in confusion. Suddenly the memories of how she left come flying back to the forefront of her mind and she's overwhelmed with guilt. She grins sheepishly and waves at them, "Hi…?"

The other girl beside her raises an eyebrow at the turtles, pulling off her sunglasses and revealing her dark brown eyes. Her jaw drops in shock, "Turtles."

Ryu's expression flips, becoming annoyed, "I told you this."

"Yeah, but…actually seeing them…its…" the other girl eyes Ryu's expression and she props her hands on her hips with a glare, "I thought you were lyin', geez."

"Mutant turtles living in the sewers under New York City studying ninjitsu under a rat master…Who could make that up?!"

"You," the other girl throws her a look.

Ryu throws her hands up, "This coming from the girl who thinks Yetis exist."

"They do exist. They're my friends."

"Now, who's sounding like the lunatic?" Ryu scoffs.

"HEY!"

"What?!" the girls scream in union, turning back around and finding their companion glaring at them.

"A little help would be nice."

"You're doing fine," Ryu tosses a hand at him, waving his worry off as if it's nothing.

The guy storms up to them, pulls the hammer back on both guns, and points a barrel at each of their heads. The girls turn to him slowly, raising their hands and smiling nervously.

"Calm down," Ryu laughs weakly, edging away around him.

"Yeah, chill," the other girl mimics.

The guy lowers his guns and smiles at the group staring on in deep confusion, "Hi, I'm Venn. Nice to meet you. You already know Ryu, I'm sure. The other girl is Venus; she's got a bit of a mouth on her so please excuse that."

"Uh…" the redhead starts, leaning around him to glance off at Ryu who throws a rock at the beast that pierces its chest and sends it flying into a tree. The other girl, Venus, starts pulling out long, sharp daggers from inside her jacket and jumps up to push them through the monster's head to better secure it there.

Venn follows her gaze and throws a thumb back at the scene, "Yeah, we know about you guys. Ryu told us, so don't worry about keeping your secret, we've got you covered."

"I was…thinking…" April trails off.

Venn studies her expression for a second and then realizes what she meant, "Oh, you mean us! Right, yeah, we're just like Ryu…sorta."

"Hey, Venn!" Ryu calls to him, "Do you mind?!"

Venn turns, aims his gun, and fires. A chain shoots out, spinning through the air dangerously, and wraps around the monster and the tree tightly in seconds. "Happy?"

"And you couldn't do that before…why?" Venus gripes. "You idiots brought me all the way out here to butt-ugly nowhere to fight a bunch of alien freaks, not mutated nuts."

Venn faces the turtles again, "Again, I do apologize for her mouth."

His eyes open up slowly through the headache pounding into his skull and he finds Donnie and April staring down at him. Donnie grins in relief and cheers, "Yes!"

Mikey pops into view and his eyes widen in horror, "Oh no! Raph! Look at him, it's terrible!"

"What do you mean? He's perfectly normal," Donnie argues.

April reaches out of view to lift up a familiar strip of red fabric and lower is down over Raph's face, tying it behind his head, "How about now, Mikey?"

Mikey leans in to get a better look and breaks into a grin, "Whew, yeah, way better."

Raph plants his hand on his younger brother's face and shoves him away angrily before sitting up off the hay bales, "What…the heck is going on?"

Casey laughs as he walks up, "A crazy swamp monster sucked out your mutagen and turned you into a plant, dude. It was awesome!"

April glares up at Casey's excitement but keeps her comment to herself as she sits down on the hay bales behind Raph. Donnie busies himself with a hand-made IV tube he's hung up nearby, "But I used this IV tube to drain all the mutagen out of the creep and back into your body. Cool, right? Killed off the infection like a bad case of shellacne."

Raph smiles over at his brother with a sigh of exhaustion, "Cool. Thanks, Don. So, what happened to the monster?"

"It got turned back into swamp goo. Pretty wicked, right?" Casey smirks, motioning with a nod of his head over towards at jar at the end of Donnie's IV that sits on a table nearby. The goop on the inside is glowing a yellow-green color that doesn't exactly scream 'pretty'.

"Donnie worked all night to save you," April points out behind him, "Leo never left your side."

Raph's eyes widen and he turns to find his brother in question sitting on a pile of hay nearby, his whole body slumped in fatigue. "That's what brothers are for," Leo smiles over at him before standing and going to bump fists with Raph, "We got to heal up, Raph. We got a city to take back."

Mikey leaps up to the top of the bale of hay that Raph had been resting on and raises a hand into the air, "I give that a big, fat, sloppy wet…BOO-YA-KA-SHA!"

"Does that kid always scream?"

They all turn to the barn doors, propped open a little ways to let in the moon light outside.

"Who was that?" Raph asks.

The others glance at each other warily, knowing full and well how Raph feels about the subject waiting outside. April folds her hands in front of her, taking a step forward, "Raph, during the fight with the monster…Ryu…found us. She's come to help us and she's brought some friends with her that I think will-."

Raph kicks over a bucket nearby as he storms off towards the door, "We don't need her or her friends! They can all go home since they like it so much!"

"Raph wait-!" Leo calls after him.

He shoves the door to the barn open and pauses. Three people stand before him in a small huddle outside. A tall guy in white blonde hair, an olive skinned girl with a half shaved head of dark brown hair, and Ryu's shorter form with her silver-white hair.

They all turn to him and Ryu's eyes widen a little before she drops her gaze to the ground guilty. Raph grinds his teeth, she should feel bad. He waltzes right up to her and swings his fist at her causing her to flinch back and lose her balance, falling to the ground before him.

"Raph, stop!"

"No," Raph yells as he jabs a finger down at Ryu with rage burning in those green eyes, "I won't stop until she's gone."

Huh?!, Ryu thinks. She stares up at him, hurt by his words and her chest tightens. Uncertain of her movements, she stays where she is on the ground and just stares up at those green eyes so full of hate.

Venn steps between him and Ryu and holds up his hands, "Let me explain-."

"No way," Raph growls, glaring around him at Ryu, refusing to even acknowledge Venn's presence, "No one wants you here anymore, so go back to that home you love so much. Don't even think about coming back!"

Leo grabs his brother and tries to pull him back but Raph breaks free and pushes past Venn. Ryu's mind snaps back to the present and she quickly stands to her feet to face him. She doesn't push him away when he starts yelling in her face, doesn't get angry when he calls her a coward for running, doesn't react when he tells her that this isn't her home anymore.

She just keeps her face blank and stares right into his eyes. She faces his anger, knowing full and well that she deserves it. Ryu keeps her mouth shut and accepts all he says to her with patience and calm. When Raph finally storms off across the dark lawn and back into the house, Ryu doesn't turn to follow him; she lets him go.

Venn stares at the ground with an odd expression on his face, digging the toe of his boot into the dirt. Venus on the other hands stares right at Ryu with an eyebrow raised in slight amusement, "Well…that was interesting."

Leo opens his mouth to say something, but April grabs his arm to stop him, "Let's all just…go get some sleep. It's late. We'll take care of this in the morning."

"Why?" Venus turns to her with her arms still crossed.

"Because things are too raw right now, Venus, stop being so inconsiderate," Venn snaps.

"I'm not being inconsiderate. Why go to bed being angry like this? We could all die tonight and they wouldn't get the chance to fix this. They'd die angry with each other and that will just fester into something that will eventually break open into full out hate."

Venn looks up at her as she spins on her heel and strolls across the yard with a little sway in her step, "I hate it when you open your mouth and a fortune cookie pops out."

Venus waves back at him without turning around, "You're welcome."

April steps up and still shakes her head, "There's only a few hours left until morning. I still think it'd be best to take care of this then."

"Yeah," Venn agrees.

"We don't have many rooms left but-."

"We'll bunk on the floor or outside. It won't bother us."

Leo pats Venn's shoulder before walking past him towards the house, "No way would we kick friends out into the yard. The living room is open."

They all head into the house and settle down for the night. As Ryu rolls her bedding out onto the floor, she tucks her arms under her head and bores her eyes into the wall in front of her. She wouldn't sleep tonight. She doesn't think her mind can shut off even if she tried.

Author's Note:

So...? What do you think? Leave a review with your thoughts. We love to hear from you guys!

-Ravyne