A/N Here's the next installment; but don't worry, it's still just a teaser for what's coming. Sorry, I know it's mean, but I can't help myself. Oh, and please forgive the lack of details in the battle. I don't do fight scenes very well.
As Leo sat watching the evening news, waiting for his brothers to finish getting to go for their evening patrol, it suddenly dawned on him that he had been here, with his new brothers, for just about a year. In fact, it would be exactly one year in three days. And what a year it had been! Thinking back to that dreadful night he had tried to hang himself, Leo knew he never would have imagined just how well the events of that night would turn out. Leo had finally found the family he had always dreamed of, and he had no regrets whatsoever at leaving behind the abusive family he had been born into. As for his new family, at times it seemed like he had been a part of it forever, and at times it felt like mere days.
"Hey, earth to Leo," Raph said, interrupting Leo's thoughts. "Where ya' at, bro? It's time to go."
"Just thinking," Leo said, gathering his katanas and placing them in their sheaths. "Did you realize that in three days I will have been here a year? I'm thinking maybe we ought to plan a little celebration."
Raph grinned. "Sounds good, bro. I know Mikey would certainly go for the idea."
"What idea is that," Mikey asked as he and Don entered the living room.
"In three days it will be my one year anniversary of being back," Leo said. "I was thinking a party sounded like a good idea."
"Yeah," Mikey exclaimed. "I have some great party dishes I've been dying to try out. Let's see, there's the bean dip, and the dessert pizza, and the…"
Leo just shook his head as he followed his youngest brother out of the Lair, Mikey still rattling off all the specialty dishes he planned to make for the celebration.
That particular evening, it was Raph's turn to be the leader. After a few warm up stretches, the second oldest turtle led his brothers in a game of follow the leader, ninja style. Leo was unable to keep a grin off his face as he raced after his brother over the rooftops, thoroughly enjoying himself. The brothers chased each other all over town, until they eventually found themselves out by the docks. The night took a sudden, serious turn when a large number of Purple Dragons were spotted milling around one of the larger warehouses. Pulling his brothers up short, Raph looked at Leo.
"What do you think," he asked. Leo considered the scene below them.
"That many Purple Dragons, you know something's up," he said. "I'm willing to bet that if the PD's are out here, there are Foot ninjas inside."
"Should we check it out, or give it a pass," Raph asked, willing to follow Leo's lead in the matter. If Leo said they should go, they would go.
Leo scowled. "Things have been a little too quiet with the Foot here lately," he said. "That usually means they're planning something. If nothing else, we should probably at least take a look inside that warehouse to see what's up. If there's no immediate threat, then we can keep an eye on the happenings here. If there is a threat, well, maybe we can neutralize it before it becomes a problem."
"Alrighty, then," Raph said. "You want to lead us in?"
"It's still your night," Leo replied. "I think you can handle leading a recon mission. If there is any real confrontation, then I'll take over."
With a silent nod, Raph led his brother further into the shadows. For the four ninjas, getting around the scattered Purple Dragons was mere child's play, and they were soon on the roof of the warehouse. Quick work by Donny soon had the alarm system deactivated, the and brothers moved silently into the building. To the turtles' pleasant surprise, there was a dark catwalk overlooking the main floor of the warehouse. Situating themselves for the best view, the turtles settled in to wait and observe. The first thing they noticed was the sheer number of Foot ninjas present: at least fifty, with about twenty of those being Elites and another fifteen wearing the light-bending gear of the Foot-Tech ninjas that would allow them to become invisible. But that wasn't what captured the turtles' attention. No, their interest was fixated on the large apparatus at the far end of the warehouse. To Leo, the machine looked like an oversized computer attached to a large projector of some sort. Busily attending to the machine was the mad genius, Baxter Stockman, his body a crazy conglomerate of human and machine. Most alarming of all, however, was the metal bedecked figure standing behind Stockman: Oroku Saki, the Shredder. The brothers looked at each other in alarm. They all knew that if the Shredder was here in person, then whatever he had planned was about to be implemented.
Raph turned to Leo. "This is where I hand things over to you, Leader Mine," he whispered. "What do we do?"
Leo's mind immediately shifted gears, moving into battle leader mode. "First, we need to even the odds a little," he whispered back. "A couple of Donny's special smoke bombs ought to do the trick, especially if we spread out along the catwalk so that we cover a larger area." The smoke bombs Leo was talking about were a new invention of Don's, combining the cover of a traditional smoke pellet with a strong, air-born sedative. "Using the cover of the smoke, we move in and take out as many of the Foot ninjas as we can; fortunately we all have our heat-vision goggles, because we're going to need them against those Foot-Tech's. Once we hit the floor, I want you and Mikey to cover Donny and get him to that machine. He will hopefully be able to sabotage it before Stockman can use it do whatever it does."
"Sounds fine and dandy," Mikey said, "but aren't you forgetting one little detail? What about the Shredder?"
"Leave Saki to me," Leo said grimly. "I have a score to settle with him."
Taking Leo at his word, the brothers spread out along the catwalk. At Leo's signal, they let loose with a barrage of smoke pellets. Their masks securely in place, the brothers moved into the cover provided by the obscuring smoke, and quickly made their way through the crowd of Foot ninjas covering the floor. As the smoke began to clear, and the brothers were able to see clearly once more, they were pleasantly surprised to find that the knock out gas had performed better than anticipated, with at nearly half the Foot lying unconscious on the floor. Unfortunately, a good number of those still standing were the Elites, so the turtles' onward movement was momentarily curbed. Still, even the Foot's so-called superior force was no match for the greater skill and team work of the four brothers, and the turtles had soon reached their destination. As Mikey and Raph took on the job of distracting Stockman so that Donny could get at the machine, Leo found himself face-to-face with Saki himself.
"This is impossible," the Shredder growled as he parried the blow from Leo's katana. "I killed you myself."
"Yeah, but you see Metal Head, I'm like a nasty personal fungus," Leo replied. "Just when you think you've gotten rid of me, I come back worse than ever." With that, Leo increased the strength of his attack. Saki soon found himself hard-pressed to keep the blue accented turtle from getting through his defenses. Still, he did not allow that to stop him from bragging,
"Your interference does not matter, you meddlesome freak of nature. My trans-dimensional window is set on automatic. In a matter of minutes, it will be completely powered up, opening a window to unleash an army of demons that will rip this reality apart. Once the world is in chaos, I will be able to take over, at which time I will return the demons to their own dimension, leaving me to rule this world once and for all."
"Saki, did anyone ever tell you that you talk too much," Leo asked, just before he delivered a powerful kick to the wanna-be dictator's head that knocked him out and sent him flying. Leo didn't have time to finish him off, however, as the sounds of battle coming from behind him distracted him. Turning around, Leo saw Donny being held in a too-tight hold by the crazed Stockman, while Raph and Mikey battered his robotic body in an attempt to make his let go.
"Leo, the machine," Donny gasped as Stockman's hold tightened even more.
Leo turned to find a "window" beginning to form. Leo knew if he didn't do something soon, the portal would open, and Saki's army of demons, or whatever they were, would come pouring out. Unfortunately, Stockman stood between Leo and his goal, and even as distracted as the human-robot monster was, Leo knew he would never be able to get around him to turn off the machine. So Leo did the only thing he could think of. Grabbing one of his katanas off his back, he threw the weapon as hard as he could at what appeared to be the control panel. The sword cut easily into the control mechanism, and immediately sparks began to shoot out of the machine. The portal itself began to fluctuate in size as the power flow to the generator ceased to flow regularly.
"No," Stockman screamed, releasing the purple-accented turtle. But instead of running to the now malfunctioning machine, he turned the disappeared into the dark. Leo rushed to his brothers' assistance. Pulling one of his wheezing brother's arms over his shoulder, Leo helped Donny to his feet. As Raph and Mikey joined them, the youngest turtle exclaimed,
"Hey, where'd Shred-head go?"
Leo looked to where Saki's body had lain only moments before, but as expected, it was no longer there. Leo felt the beginnings of a guilt attack for not removing the threat from his family when he had the chance, but Raph immediately cut him off.
"None of that," he told his big brother. "We'll always have another chance to take Tin Head down. You helped where you were more needed."
"Uh, guys," Mikey said, his alarmed tone pulling his two oldest brothers' attention back to the present. "I thought we shut that thing down."
The three older turtle turned to look at the trans-dimensional portal. What had moments before been a stuttering and fluctuating portal had become a large tear through space and time, looking like a large floating wound made of light. Even worse, however, were the vague shapes that could be seen slowly materializing out of the portal.
"Don," Leo shouted, "shut it down."
Don dove at the control panel, desperate to follow his leader's order, but before he could even begin to guess how to do so, the figures finished materializing, and stumbled into the turtles' reality.