The Perfect Son

Disclaimer: I deny any ownership of any adult, or adolescent transformed shadow warrior chelonians.

Author's note for: Haoyoh Asakura: Thank you for pointing out the rough spots. I did my best to smooth them over and try to tidy it up the last chapter a little bit. I don't know if it helped or not. I think I've done my best to answer all your questions- surrounding the fact of why the turtles don't take off and help their brother right away, and why the turtles couldn't handle the number of soldiers without some preparation before hand. You point out in the movie, or in this 'such and such happened' as a basis for your arguments.

Everyone has their ideas/views/opinions of how the turtles should act in certain situations, based from what they know, or what they have come to believe based on their knowledge. For you the turtles would rush in-no matter what the odds and probably prevail. For me, the turtles wouldn't be able to. Well, they could rush in but most likely lose a team member or two for it. In this case, Leo and possibly one other turtle. But I wasn't writing this for a death fic. Though I do have a few of those. In this case neither of us are right or wrong, it's just our opinions. Mine won't change, and neither will yours it seems and that is fine because neither of us have to change our views. Thanks for your review.

Chapter Twenty Three- Two steps forward, three back

Christine:

I found myself for the most part, stuck between the four boys, as if they were all a bunch of mother hens and I was the chick they were defend. A part of me wanted to join the fight, I knew I could fight and I wanted a chance to get back at these guys.

But a larger part of me knew why, it was the turtles were keeping me out of the fray. This wasn't just simple hand to hand techniques, it was armed combat and it came fast and ready. There was no way I could protect myself against so many opponents at once. Not to mention that if one soldier was knocked out, or killed at least three more would push in to take the fallen soldier's place. I didn't have a hard shell protecting a larger part of my body either, and would most likely end up hacked to bits if I was not protected by their circle.

I stayed close to Leo, and managed to sneak the small staff by to hit or strike at a couple soldiers in the small space between my friends, and that it seemed would have to be the limit of my pay back on the Foot clan.

I wasn't too sure how much Leo could handle, as I knew he hadn't practiced for a while, and while he was still muscled it was clear, when compared to his brothers that it wasn't as defined as theirs were.

I also recalled Leo's brief stint of craziness, temporary insanity? I wasn't sure what to label it as, I only knew that for a short time Leo had been unresponsive and not quite all there. I wasn't sure if what ever he had dealt with, had fully passed or not. A part of me, said that he couldn't have recovered that quickly. He might be able to concentrate on the battle at hand at the moment, but that part of him might rise again. If the battle stayed too long and intense, it could return to him in the fight itself. Or it might not.

I had nothing to judge on and I was more than a little concerned for him. Of course his brothers knew nothing of what had transpired, they saw that Leo was fighting and clearly getting right back down to business, and of course there was no time to inform the others of how Leo had gotten his memory back.

Leo at the moment had combined the sword, Raph had found for him, with one of the sai that he had gotten from the Foot soldier against the enemy, and some of them seem rather confused by his bizarre match of weapons.

Leo glanced towards the cargo bay doors and I looked that way too, seeing nothing but rubble, that way was impassible. There was another door, off to one side that I could see the frame of, but there was a mass of Soldiers between us and it.

"Is there another way out of here?" I wondered. I swore everywhere I looked was black garbed people waiting their turn to get a piece of turtle.

"Yeah, over that way." Don told me using his staff to point the direction before spinning his weapon around to block a strike.

I watched from my protected corner, and realized that no matter how many soldiers the turtles, hit we were gaining little or no ground. My heart was pounding hard as I watched the turtles stand unflinching.

"We've got to get the hell outta here," Raph growled as he tossed one Foot soldier into another. "Let's blaze a trail."

"Front or side?" Leo asked.

"Front Leo," Came Raph quick but astonished sounding reply.

Leo nodded, "Don stick with Mike. Christine stay centered."

The four turtles seemed to back up until I felt almost squished between them, a couple of the turtles switched position. Before Leo and Don had been side by side. Leo in the front, Don on the left. Raph at my right and Mike behind me. Now the turtles were spaced so that Don was behind me.

"Now, let's move them back." Leo ordered, as he started to move ahead.

I wondered at the switch then realized that the switch was due to the fact that there was a long weapon, Leo followed by the short weapons on left and right of him. As the turtles started to move through the Foot, I could see the reasoning of the switch.

The turtles with the longer weapons forced back Soldiers who were further away, while Raph and Mike easily picked off the soldiers who got too close to them. All of them were able to assist their brothers.

I marveled at the team work, and we were moving gaining ground ever so slowly in the direction we desired, it was steady step every few seconds but at least we were going in the direction to get out of the warehouse.

The Foot though only gave them a couple of feet of ground before they seemed to clue in that the turtles were getting somewhere and they best be stopped. Soldiers moved in to block our passage, closing the distance and making it harder to move.

Raphael:

We didn't get enough ground there was an army of Foot here and the only reason one of us hadn't been picked off yet is cause we were basically stickin' together. I caught a flash of something and glanced up in time to see a dagger heading my way.

I tossed a sai to intercept the knife, and it hit the blade sending it off elsewhere. 'Damn. I hated to lose a weapon, specially in a battle where I could use it.' Oh well at least Leo had a spare.

I edged closer to him and plucked the spare sai from the belt. His head snapped around and he smiled a little when he saw it was only me. "This isn't working Leo. How bout we make for a wall and edge long it to the door?"

I knew that meant falling back to the wall but we could form a line with our backs to the wall to protect ourselves and Christine. Sides Splinter had often told us that sometimes you had to fall back to move forward. Not to mention that there wasn't as many Foot along the wall.

"Sounds like a plan" Leo agreed as he blocked a low swung bo staff with his katana and knocked a set of chucks from another Foot hand with his sai.

I shook my head. I had nothing against paired weapons, after all the sai I carried was a paired weapon, but Leo had the oddest paired weapon ever. Typical of Leo though he was actually making it work but I had to wonder what was going on in his mind to put a katana with a single sai.

A second was about all I had to reflect on that though as my sai had to block a sword strike. I moved fast catching the blade between the tines of my weapon and twisting the sai, while I kicked at the soldier.

Before I could get my leg down a kusari fundo wrapped around just below the knee. The Soldier on the other end gave a sharp hard jerk, trying to knock me down. I fought to maintain my balance. Heck, the chain from his weapon meant he was out of reach of the staff or katana.

I quickly traded one sai for a dagger from my belt, and tossed it towards the soldier. I wasn't worried if it found it's mark or not. Either the soldier opted to deflect it or get hit by it either way he had to concentrate on it, and that could distract him long enough for me to gain my balance and hopefully, break free.

The ninja dropped the chain, which I pulled my way. I wasn't much for chain weapons- I prefer blades- but I figured Mike might enjoy a new toy and who knows it just might come in handy.

The ninja who had used the weapon was suddenly charging towards me. Dumb move! Plain stupid, especially as I still had his weapon in my hands. I swung the chain and wrapped both of his legs with a fast jerk I pulled him down the floor, then used the other end of the chain to hit him over the head.

I could see Don jabbing a Foot soldier in the throat and jerking his bo up under the jaw, before bringing it down to go for a hit to the gut. He noticed a bisento blade coming for him and quickly brought the staff around to block the handle, if not the axe head itself, but in doing so he exposed an arm to the swing of a katana. It was a bad hit and deep, but we'd all survived worse.

It would be another scar, that was all.

The Foot didn't seem to be pushing us so hard now, though there were still plenty of unwounded soldiers willing to take a shot at us. We made it up against the wall, now we only had to make it a few feet down ward from the hall way we had left, when? It felt like some time back, and yet at the same time only as if minutes had passed.

Leo got Christine behind us as we formed a line along the wall at least no one could sneak around us to ambush us we only had to concentrate on what was in front of us, and to the side of us, with the possible overhead attack but so many soldiers down here, the over head attacks had kinda slowed down. The Foot didn't want to kill too many of their own members.

We faced the Foot. Our weapons were still very much at the ready, we were all battered and bleeding by this point, but we were also still standing and so were our enemies.

A soldier with a short sword came to challenge Leo. When it came to swords Leo easily knew all the strong and weak points on any blade and he used that knowledge to his advantage, he pressed the broader blade of his katana against the thinner section of the shorter sword of his opponent until he heard a snapping sound.

A Foot Soldier tried a low sweep kick, which I leaped over, coming down with a side kick to the head.

The Foot were doing their best to make it hard to move, but in the process they were not giving themselves much room to move or fight, so they were hindering themselves at the moment.

"Shuriken coming at us. Christine duck down," Leo yelled.

We began moving our weapons swinging, batting and blocking at the throwing stars coming our way. One found it's way into my plastron and lodged there, another hit the wall behind us.

When the volley of projectiles slowed down Leo began edging his way along the wall, heading for the door that was near the river. It frustrated me that we had to fight our way this way, why couldn't we head out the way we came, it had been the closest exit.

Of course there had been a number of Foot blocking that way. I was starting to feel that this way was a trap though, as if they were just herding us, biding their time until they got us into position to do …whatever it was they planned to do.

I saw that Leo was still confusing the soldiers with his idea of paired weapons, but it had worked in our favour, there was a trail of dead soldiers behind us.

Leo's left hand shot out, and a Foot soldier blocked the strike from the sai with his own katana but Leo hardly paused he swung his own sword for the head, killing the soldier quickly too fast for the Foot soldier to block it.

I figured that Leo would pick up the fallen soldier's katana- sure it wasn't a match set but at least it would be a pair of his favourite weapons but he didn't even seem to notice it. 'Something still isn't right with Leo. Something is off here.'

Unfortunately I didn't have time to figure it out as a Foot soldier stepped forth to challenge me he bore sais as well, and the metal of our weapons pinged and rang ever so softly. He was trying to sneak past my defenses. I stared him hard in the eyes, doing my best to intimidate him with my glare. Not to mention trying to sense what move he'd try next. I did my best to let instinct guide my hands.

Once I was sure of his measure, with the sai I went after him hard. He parried well and I moved quick changing a thrust of my left arm to a sneak attack with the right and he parried that too.

Oooh. I had a challenge on my hands. 'Imagine that, a Foot soldier who almost knew what he was doing. Damn! Who ever thought of that?" Course I knew there were a few good fighters among the Foot. But I had a feeling a lot of the soldiers we had downed tonight were the new recruits who had popped up in the last few years.

This guy wasn't even drawn out by any of my fake attacks and I wasn't caught off guard by his. This one had to be damn close to Elite, though his dogi didn't mark him as such.

I curled my lip into a sneer, and tapped into my wild rage suddenly he started to falter as my strikes came hard, fast and most of all with no predictable pattern. He managed to sneak past once and pierce my skin with a sai tip. I moved fast with the speed of a striking snake, ramming a sai into his belly, and felt his warm blood on my hands. I whirled about to continue with the next Foot soldier, doing a leaping spin kick to knock him unconscious to the ground.

A katana blade swung at me. I whipped around blocking with one sai and broke the arm of the Foot soldier with a swift down ward chop onto the collar bone, followed through with a front snap kick to his knee breaking the knee cap.

By now the anger began to abate a little and I glanced around noticing in my wild rage I had moved out and away from the wall. I could see a platform ahead and off to one side. I slowly backed up to rejoin the others along the wall.

"Having fun Raph?" Leo inquired almost cheerfully as I drew up near them again.

I was really starting to wonder about him. He was back and he was fighting yes, but he still wasn't the Leo I was used to.

By now we were about halfway to our goal of the front entrance. "Oh yeah, the party is just getting good Leo" I remarked huffing slightly.

Mike had wrapped his chick around a soldier with a hanbo and then using the right amount of leverage flipped the soldier into a few of his buddies "Bowling for Foot."

"You got a spare Mike." I chuckled a little and pointed to a soldier he missed.

Mike shrugged and wrapped his chuck around the shaft of a bisento wielding soldier and once again used the right leverage to send the Foot into the spare. "That always was my best shot," he retorted as the Soldiers fell to the ground.

Suddenly, the Foot Soldiers stopped and backed up. I sensed Leo tense beside me, and looked over to see what it is that he saw. It was another soldier dressed in a black dogi with no mask on, there was a haughty tilt to his head and he and a number of soldiers stood between us and the door.

I had a feeling that the soldiers with him were probably better fighters of the clan, suddenly it made sense they'd been wearing us down. We were all hurt and injured, and while we could fight for a long time if necessary that didn't mean we wouldn't make mistakes. You make one too many mistakes in this game you wind up dead.

"Quan," I heard Leo hiss the name.

"You are prepared to fail now, for the last time are you?" He asked, his dark eyes gleamed.

"I challenge you to shinken shobu," Leo growled, "then we will see who fails. One on one." Leo demanded.

I gulped, was Leo crazy?

A challenge to the death between our leader, and the leader of the Foot clan - or at least that is what I took him to be.

I had to wonder though was Leo really ready to face that sort of challenge?

TBC

Shinken Shobu- literally real sword contest. Almost always a fight to the death between the parties involved.