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Chapter Fourteen; Warehouse Sixteen.

There was no warning.

One moment a few Purple Dragon and a couple Initiates were moving boxes around the warehouse, the next two Dragons were on the floor while the Nightwatcher stood in a destroyed doorway with his weapons already set to spinning again.

"Where's the kid and his father." No questions, just threats in the form of demands.

He received no verbal reply. The remaining Dragons and Initiates charged him, trying to overwhelm him with their rather lacking numbers. Nightwatcher's manriki shot out, shattering bone and breaking skin. One had his feet pulled out from under him, his skull cracking loudly against the concrete. Another felt the chain wrap around his torso, pulling him off his feet and causing him to land on his face, shattering the fragile cartilage of his nose. Still more were simply hit in the head and rendered unconscious.

Nightwatcher could easily have killed every last person in the building, and the fiery rage coursing through his blood demanded it.

But a small memory tinted orange stopped him.

"I mean, du-ude, being a ninja is cool but killing people? Do we have to?"

"Mikey, you heard Master Splinter's lessons. Like he says, it takes more skill to injure than to kill. And trust me, Mike, you're going to be such a kick-butt ninja you won't have to kill no one."

"You think so?"

"Nope, I know so."

"So, I won't have to kill anyone. That's good…You won't kill anyone either, right?"

It had been a dream. Back then they still had to help each other tie their masks on. By now they had both lost count of the kills, but somehow those blue eyes were staying his hand. Even as the chain seemed to call for vengeance, mercy was granted.

The manriki caught an Initiate by the leg as he tried to crawl away. A harsh jerk and he found himself sliding across the floor towards the intruder. As his momentum slowed he was stopped by a heavy boot. The boot kicked him onto his back and the Initiate stared in terror at his own reflection in the visor. Nightwatcher pulled some kind of three bladed knife from somewhere on his costume and gave it a spin before placing the tip of the middle blade under the Initiate's jaw.

"The kid, his father, where are they." The Initiate tried to crawl back from the blade but the chain still wrapped around his ankle jerked him forward, causing the blade to dig into the soft flesh under his jaw, letting the blood slide down his throat. "Talk, before I take your tongue as a souvenir."

The Initiate opened his mouth, gasped and tried to explain, "I-I don't, I'm just an Initiate! They didn't tell me! They packed the deaf kid and his old man up this morning. Somebody said something about the, the-" The man swallowed, trying to get moisture back in his mouth to talk with, "Look, all I know is that they're trying to find some guy called, called," The Initiate squeezed his eyes shut, trying to remember, "Chris? No! Kyle! They want this guy Kyle, the old man's supposed to know him!" His eyes peeled open, not knowing what to expect.

Nightwatcher withdrew the dagger thing and pulled his arm back, looking for all the world like he was about to strike. The Initiate shut his eyes again and threw up his arms to protect him, "I'm sorry! I wasn't involved in the warehouse! I told them to let the girl out first! I'm sorry!"

There was a moment of dead silence. When the Initiate gathered enough courage to look up again he saw the Nightwatcher standing dead still, his dagger shaking. The leather of his glove creaked and the Initiate was sure he was dead; he could physically feel the rage rolling off of this guy. Once more the dagger was drawn back, a savage and enraged growl echoed out of the helmet. Again the Initiate threw his arms up in a miserable attempt to protect himself.

"Raph! Wait! WAIT!"

"What do you think you're doing!? Raphael, have you lost your mind?! You could have killed Mike if you'd hit him with this!"

A metallic noise. The crunching of concrete.

It was nearly a full five minutes before the Initiate realized he still lived and a couple more before he realized the Nightwatcher had gone. He sat up and looked around the warehouse for a moment, hardly believing his luck.

"Guys, I'm really sorry."

"Hey, don't sweat it bro."

"Mikey." Nightwatcher moved slowly though the streets of New York, physically and emotionally exhausted; but there was still work to be done.

The last two sets of italics were adapted from both the original Mirage comic and the 2003 series.

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