Everyone, I am soooo sorry. These last two updates were supposed to be mine, but I had absolutely NO internet connection on my vacation. So here's two uploads to make up for it. Enjoy!

Please review! All advice, suggestions, and critiques are welcome!

-Ravyne

**DISCLAIMER: WE DO NOT OWN TMNT**

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Strike of the Dragon

PART 2

8

3-4.2: "Raph"

"So…anyone want to fill me in on what's going on?" Ryu asks as she watches the frog army begin to line up in battle formation below.

"They're going to invade New York and turn everyone into frogs," April explains from beside her.

"And none of you have tried to get out?"

"Not everyone can have powers like you," Casey argues from the cage nearby.

Ryu glares at him, "Who says I can break them open? I can only influence earth elements, not wood. That's a totally different class."

"Class?"

Ryu just shakes her head at him, "Never mind, we've just got to find something sharp and then-."

A loud crack interrupts her sentence and the tree rumbles from the following impact. "Guys!" Mikey exclaims happily. They all follow his gaze to find Donnie, Leo, and Raph have fallen down into the mass of frogs below. Ryu smiles.

"Wow, awkward," Donnie smiles sheepishly at the frogs around him.

The huge leader frog calls to the general frog who hops up onto a nearby branch to shout, "Destroy them!"

"Eat it, froggy!" Raph shouts, kicking the general in the back of the head as Leo comes swooping in to kick an attacking frog away from Donnie. The fight below heats up almost instantly and Ryu hurries to search through her pockets for anything she can use. They must've stripped her clean of everything before locking her in here because she finds nothing.

"Ugh," Ryu grits her teeth and lies back on her side so that she can kick hard at the door. April follows suit and the wood budges little by little, but not enough to make any real progress.

"Get us out of here, Napolean! I got to totally go ninja on their butts!" Mikey calls down to someone below them. Ryu pauses mid-kick and glances over at the kid as if he's gone nuts but then a few moments later, something hits the side of the cage and tosses it off balance.

It's another frog, but this one is different. He's skinny with a bigger head and he wears a white shirt and a goofy hat. He opens their door and holds out a hand to her. She and April stand up and glance at him warily.

"It's okay, guys. He's cool!" Mikey assures them.

Ryu shrugs and takes his frog hand in hers. A long second later, the frog grins behind his buck teeth, "Hey, she's kinda cute."

Ryu smiles, "Aw, thanks. You're kinda adorable too." With that, she drops from the cage to land on the make-shift treehouse floor below, ducking under a spear that swings at her and then tackling the frog to the ground.

"Did I hear you right?"

She turns around to face Raph.

"Did you just call that slimy mutant cute?"

Ryu fights back a smirk and grabs his shoulder with a nod, "You really want to do this? Now?" She spots the attack coming behind him and shoves him out of the way to take the tackle instead of him. Ryu and the frog go rolling across the wood planks a few feet before she finally gets her footing and kicks him off, sending him flying over the edge to the forest below.

"Nice move," Venn helps her to her feet and they both look up as the leader frog snatches Leo up by the throat.

"Halt your attacks or your friend gets it!"

Everyone stops attacking and then, hesitantly, drops their weapons. Frogs come up behind each of them and force them to their knees. Leo struggles against the hold around his neck, but the leader frog only tightens his grasp. Raph tries to get up only to be struck against the back of the head.

"Frogs, tie them up and put them in their cages once again. This time, we will not take chances. They will either join us or be dropped to their deaths," the leader orders.

Ryu stiffens, eyeing the edge of the treehouse cautiously. She's about to move to kick the feet out from under the nearest frog, but Venn moves first—like a flash of light. Smoke explodes around them, throwing everyone off for a second, and Ryu breaks out into a fit of coughs, "Thanks for the warning, loser!"

As it clears, she looks up to find Venn on his feet and one of his guns drawn. The metal is twisting, changing, as it takes the form of a gun made purely of wood and crawling ivy. "Drop the turtle or I take out your tree."

"He'll do it," Ryu nods, holding up her hands in defeat as the frog to her left steps back up to place his spear head against her throat. "He doesn't care what'll happen. You can threaten to hurt us or kill us, but it won't budge him. His mission is to end you if you don't choose to side with us. That's it."

"As if I would believe the words of a pathetic human!" the leader shouts.

Venn smirks, pulling back the hammer on his gun, and his eyes start to glow a pale blue.

"Please do it, I really don't feel like dying today," Venus gripes.

Venn starts going into a rant about what his guns are capable of doing but Ryu zones him out as his last words come to mind: "Drop the turtle or I take out your tree."

Take out the tree…, Ryu glances back carefully over her left shoulder at the edge of the treehouse planks. If I could tilt the tree…I could throw them all off balance and that would give us enough distraction to get away.

Her eyes find Leo again, his face turning impossibly blue against his green skin. It's a really far reach to the ground from here. Her fingers automatically reach over to finger the chain around her right wrist, feeling the small crystal vial there. Can I do it? Can I handle it?

The frog beside her catches her movement and croaks as he presses the spear harder against her throat. She glares up at him, I've got no choice. No one threatens my family.

The crystal shatters in her fist and the cool liquid seeps out onto her skin, soaking almost rapidly into her flesh. The reaction is instant, the surge of energy like ice through her blood, and adrenaline pumps into her system. Her power hums through her cheerily and Ryu pushes all of it into her palms as she slaps them down on the wood. As if seeing through new eyes, she can almost see the path her power takes through the wood and through each grain of the tree. Each inch feels like a mile, a minute she loses. The distance is more than she thought, but she keeps pushing more of her power out, searching, scanning.

It's faint, but it calls out. The earth reaches up to her and she smiles. It sings to her and Ryu tells it want she needs.

The tree groans loudly and trembles; the earth beneath it solidifying and crumbling. The pull, the drain, is more than she expected. Ryu locks her jaw and struggles against the physical demand on her own energy. It leeches out of her and makes her heart beat flutter in her chest.

Not yet, please hold out, Ryu mentally pleads. Beneath her heart beat, that second one thunders to life and she rips her eyes open.

Her vision starts to pull in, to collapse on itself.

No! Ryu fights against it, pushing it away.

The tree jolts, shuddering terribly, and knocks everyone off balance.

"What is this?!" The leader drops Leo who falls to his knees gasping for breath. Candles fluttering behind him tilt over and fall to the floor below, igniting.

"Ryu, that's enough!" Venn calls out to her. Ryu struggles against the pull, barely able to hear his voice, and starts to pull back from the earth.

Leo starts to crawl away, but the leader grabs him by the foot, "Not so fast! You are responsible for this! You-!"

"STOP IT" Ryu screams, standing up and slamming her foot into the floor as she reaches out farther for the ground. She turns her palms up and pulls up on the invisible connection between her and the earth far below. The tree tilts with a roar.

The leader stumbles, releasing Leo who rolls away.

"Leo, look out! Fire!" April screams. She rushes to his side and helps him up to his feet, "We've got to get out of here!"

Casey goes to help the leader frog up and taps him on the chest with the end of his hockey stick, "Don't take this the wrong way."

With a shove, he knocks the leader onto a nearby elevator made of wood and rope and then calls out to April and Leo to climb on.

"The fire's spreading too fast. There's no saving this place. Come on, Napoleon," Mike grabs his friend by the hand and heads for a nearby elevator just as the tree rocks again. They fall forward and go rolling into the elevator perfectly, joined by Venus and Venn who sits up quickly to dive back out after Ryu. The fires roar up in his face and lick at the rope hold their escape above the forest far below.

"Ryu! Ryu, come on!"

Ryu breaks the connection and falls limply to the floor. Her vision slowly returns and her head stops spinning, but it's getting harder and harder to breath. She's not really sure why. Robotically, her legs lift her up shakily and start walking her towards Venn's voice. A roaring sound hurts her ears and she feebly covers them in attempt to escape the heat.

What the heck is going on? she thinks, What did I miss? Ryu opens her eyes.

"NO! Ryu, don't look-!"

His voice vanishes from her ears. She freezes solid. All she can see is the fire. The flames…the heat…the death…

"Go! You have to run!"

"Momma!"

"Go, get out!"

"I don't want to!"

"I have to get your sister! Get to the tree!"

"Noooo!"

"GO!"

Something slams into her, throwing her back…and she goes falling through nothing but air.

"Here, take this out to her. She likes these," Venus hands Raph a green apple from the basket in the center of the table. She leans against the wall, balancing on one foot while the other sits up on her toe; the ankle wrapped in clean white bandages. "Hey," she calls to him as he turns around.

Raph glances back at her, "What?"

"Do you know?"

He rolls his eyes, "About what?"

"Why she locked up."

Raph's eyes drop to the apple in his hand. He may not know much about her past, but he can guess, "It was the fire, right?"

Venus nods, her eyes falling to the floor, "It does something to her. I'm not really sure what, but Ryu told me about it once. She's afraid of it. She once said 'Fire ate my family'…she was only nine when she told me this so it sounded weird to me then. It wasn't until I heard about how her family died that I understood. She relives that. Every time she's caught too close to fire. She sees her mom go after her sister, her father go back in for them, and then the fire eat her whole house up like it was made of paper. Reliving that nightmare over and over…it's painful."

Venus punches the turtle's arm, "So try being a little sensitive. If you have the capability in that oversized ego of yours."

Raph scoffs and stomps off out the front door. It's late, well past midnight, but Ryu still hasn't moved from her spot on the swing outside. She doesn't swing it though. Instead, she sits there like a rock with her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. Her face is buried out of view, but the moonlight still shines down on her silver-white hair, making it glow almost blue. The wind picks up a few lighter strands and twirls them through the air.

Again, Raph is hit by the urge to touch her hair, but he holds back. The last time he had, it had left them both feeling a bit out of line. He has no right to touch her; he's a mutant.

Shaking his head, Raph holds out the apple and taps her head with it gently, "Hey, rocky, here."

Ryu tightens her arms around her knees and shakes her head, her hair falling farther over her shoulder. Raph forces his eyes to stare at her arms instead—the glow from her hair like the radiance of a halo. "I don't want anything," she mumbles.

He ignores the dead tone in her voice, the sound like a lost puppy, and sits down on the swing next to her.

She sighs heavily, "Raph, please just…I need to be alone right now. Just give me a few minutes."

Raph tosses the apple in the air a few times quietly before he takes note of how stark the color looks against his green skin. His thoughts start to get away from his, trailing back to how her own skin had looked against his. Too different. But then he remembers that she hadn't pulled away, she continued to look at him.

Smiling a bit, he tosses the apple back up into the air and leans back into the swing, "Well, if you want a minute alone, then you have to eat the apple and-."

It's snatched out of the air just as it's floating past his nose and she pulls it out of sight under the shadow of her hunkered form. There's a crunching sound a few seconds later. Raph grins victoriously, folding his hands back behind his head and gazing up at the stars.

The apple core drops onto the swing next to him a few moments later, but she doesn't say anything. Even still, he can see it then, a softening around her edges, and a sigh of relief escapes from him, "Better?"

Ryu stays silent still, not moving. Raph worries that maybe she's even angrier for being bothered, but then her eyes peek out from over her arm. Her bangs fall away with the pull of gravity and her blind left eye is revealed for the first time in what seems like forever. That soft blue, like the early morning sky as the sun finishes rising into the sky, makes something inside him flip. Her other eye, amber as a golden flame is clear again, free of the cloud of fear that had plagued her earlier that night. They both are shining now.

Raph's eyes widen a bit in realization, Tears.

Ryu blinks repeatedly and throws her hands up over her face with a trembling laugh, an obvious move to hide her embarrassment, "Thanks, Raph. I didn't know it, but I needed that. I owe you one."

She drops her head back down and her face vanishes from view again, leaving Raph to shake himself from his shock, "Yeah you do. I'll let you know when I come up with something."

Ryu's head springs back up, "Well, that was… I was expecting something a little more…understanding, like maybe 'Hey, don't worry about it' or 'I was just being nice'."

Raph smirks at her, "It's like you don't know me at all."

Ryu grins back, "No I think I know you a little too well now."

"At least you know now."

"That you're the devil."

They both laugh and then stare up at the starry sky together in easy silence for a while. Distantly, they both spot a red blinking light soar overhead; a plane. A few silhouettes of birds flutter by. Leaves are blown loose from the treetops nearby by the wind and dance across the dark blue sky.

"Glad you're back."

Ryu blinks in surprise and glances at him. He doesn't move his gaze from the sky, but from where she sits, she can faintly see a tint of red taint his cheeks. She grins evilly and continues to stare at him. Minute by minute she can see his form become more and more uncomfortable.

He finally breaks, "What are you looking at?!"

"That wasn't a full sentence."

"What wasn't?"

"'Glad you're back,'" Ryu mimics his deep tone with a grin. "That's not a complete sentence."

He scoffs and stands to his feet, crossing his arms defiantly, "Yeah it is."

"Uh, no it's not," she jumps to her feet and wraps her arms around his neck from behind, "There should be a pronoun in there somewhere."

"What?" Raph stiffens up at her abruptness and turns his face away. "You're insane."

"No, no, there's certainly a pronoun missing from there, maybe 'everyone' or 'he' or 'they' or 'each' or maybe 'I'!"

"Nope, pretty sure you're wrong," Raph ducks under her arms and escapes her grasp, heading for the house quickly.

"Stubborn! Just say it!" Ryu growls, rushing to tackle him. They both fall to the grass and roll, but she gains ground and shoves his shoulders to the earth to hold him down.

"Say what?!" he snaps up at her as he struggles to flips her off.

Ryu tucks her knees close to his sides in an effort to hold him still and then spots a small movement by his head. She grins and grabs the squiggly worm from the grass and holds it over his face. "You know what! Say it!"

Raph turns his face away from the bug and struggles harder which only forces Ryu to push her whole forearm against his chest to keep him down, "Drop the bug!"

"Not until you say it. Just spit it out or you eat the worm!"

"You wouldn't-!"

"Yes, I would!" Ryu grins as she lowers the worm towards his face. "Just say it."

"No!"

"Say it."

"No, forget it!"

"Say it-!"

"HELLO!"

They both go still, their eyes widening in alarm as they stare at each other. For a second they both share the same question on their faces: was that you? That's when they hear a foot tapping on the steps and they turn their heads to find everyone staring at them from the porch. Venus stands at the front with an eyebrow raised in amusement.

"What are you two doing?" she asks in obvious annoyance.

Ryu sits up and points at him, answering matter-of-factly, "He wouldn't finish his sentence."

"So you felt the need to threaten him…with a worm?" Venn counters in disbelief.

Ryu glances down at the poor little creature crawling its way up her fingers and moves to put both legs on one side of Raph's torso so that she can put it back in the grass. It wiggles off rather fast for a worm, curiously, as if it's more than happy to be getting out of the current situation. She then sits up, refusing to let Raph up off the ground, and stares at Venus with a serious look on her face, "Well, I didn't exactly have a cockroach on hand so-."

"WHAT?!" Raph exclaims.

Ryu turns to his outburst uneasily, "What 'what'?"

His eyes are wide in panic, "Who told you?!"

"Told…me…" Ryu thinks for a second, "Oh, the….oh!" She quickly bites her lip nervously and stands up, fiddling her thumbs, "We…I…uh…it was…um…well…"

"MIKEY!"

Ryu jumps back as Raph rushes at the porch and little Mikey leaps out of the way to race across the yard. She winces and calls out after them, "Sorry, Mikey!"

"AAHHH! It wasn't me!" Mikey screams as he races away from his older brother who's hot on his heels.

"Whatever!" Raph leaps up and swings his arms wide, ready to tackle his brother to the ground. It's going to be a long night, but Ryu doesn't mind. She smiles as she watches them. It's moments like these that she wants to treasure, to remember in the end.

Author's Note:

Here's a layout of the text affects again:

Italics-any words in this affect are personal Thoughts or Sounds.

Bold-any words in this affect are Computer Messages/Text Messages.

"Bold"-any words in this affect inside quotation marks are Computer Voices.

"Italics"-any words in this affect inside quotation marks are Past words/Emphasizing.

"Bold/Italics"-any words in this dual affect inside quotation marks are Past Computer Messages/Past Text Messages.

Bold/Italics-any words in this dual affect are Voice of the Earth.

Italics/Underlined-any words in this dual affect are Voice of the Spirit Guides.

Bold Underlined-any words in this dual affect are an Unknown Voice.

Please let me know what y'all think so far. Katt B. will be out for a little bit...the lousy immortal "supposedly" somehow caught a cold...right. Lol!

-Ravyne