He was genuinely surprised that he hadn't met more resistance on his way down to the lobby—not that this gave him any comfort. He knew that any Footbots and cronies he wasn't seeing on his own path were more than likely bothering his family. He just prayed to God that Leo could handle it. He and Karai had to have been getting the brunt end of the onslaught. Raph had tried to put his foot down when Leo was making the plans earlier that evening and had immediately volunteered himself to take on the most risk by attacking the very face of the building. Damn martyr, always looking for the opportunity to play sacrifice like he was a throwaway chess piece.

Raph cursed under his breath, recalling the conversation he'd had with Leo once while staring into his watery blue eyes as Leo childishly asked, with a vulnerability Raph had never seen in him before, if that was their only purpose—to be pawns. Raph had assured him that was a lie, but he hadn't realized how serious Leo was about it. It hadn't crossed his mind that Leo actually believed such a thing, that he would go all-out and play the part.

Stupid. If Leo got himself killed because of this whole heroic idealism, Raph was going to murder him.

He jumped the last few steps to the ground floor and paused with his hand reaching out toward the doorknob, fingers just barely twitching once before he dove out of the way and hid himself beneath the shadows of the staircase.

The stairwell door burst open and a parade of metallic feet sprinted up the stairs just over Raph's head. He held his breath, waiting. He should be stopping them; he knew that. His part was to draw as much attention away from everyone else as possible, but he couldn't bring himself to jump out of his hidey spot. His mind was geared toward getting to the lobby, and that was it. He didn't trust Karai, and he knew Leo needed help—and both concerns sat so poorly in his stomach that it was enough to avoid a fight for once. Leo might get onto him for that later, and he was counting on that.

The door folded itself closed after the Footbots filed through, and Raph waited until he was sure they were long gone before he slipped out of the shadows and left the stairwell behind.

The hallway was initially empty, but he could hear the familiar clash, clangs, and struggles of a fight coming from his right. He ran close to the wall and drew out his sais, gripping them so tightly in his fists that his knuckles paled. A haze of pastel smoke began to curl around his feet the closer he got to the lobby and a chill ran through his shell with the presence of evil growing ever closer.

When he finally reached the opening, the fog was wrapped around his waist and he could only see the top half of the fight. For a moment, there was only Karai decapitating a horde of Footbots that were backing her into the last standing front corner of the lobby. Tigerclaw and Rahzar had their backs to him, both with their knees bent as though ready to pounce, but there was no heroic blue leader in sight.

Raph's heart jumped up to his throat and he immediately charged for Tigerclaw's back, but before he could drive his sai through the cat's shoulder blades, Leo dove out from beneath the fog with a graceful twist and kicked Tigerclaw in the back of the neck. Rahzar leapt out of the way. The giant feline fell forward like a tree, and Leo almost landed on top of his brother.

They stumbled into one another. Leo shoved his hands against Raph's shoulders to steady himself. His palms were sweaty and cold and his entire body shook with a rush of adrenaline. He gaped at Raph for a second before narrowing his eyes.

"You're supposed to be upstairs."

He and Raph both snapped their gazes to the right and leapt out of the way as Rahzar swung a boney fist. Raph pivoted on the ball of his foot and punted him in the jaw. Leo followed it up by thrusting a knee into his chin. Then they both threw a fist at his face, sending him arching backward into the sea of smoke.

"What," Raph said, turning to his brother. "So you don't need my help? Is that what you're saying?"

Leo scrunched up his nose. "Yeah—"

His denial was cut short when he tripped forward as though someone had pulled his feet out from beneath him. Raph advanced as Tigerclaw emerged, and he rammed the cat in the gut with his shoulder. Tigerclaw stayed his ground, heels planted firmly. Raphael ducked his swipe and pitched a throwing star at his face. It lodged itself into the tiger's cheek and he roared, yanking it out with a spray of blood.

Before the red-banded turtle could take advantage of the moment, his arm was snatched up by a Footbot and a second jumped on his back, locking its arms around him. Raph bared his teeth and growled, struggling to shake them loose. Tigerclaw unsheathed his sword and wrinkled his nose, pulling back his lips in a snarl to show carnivorous teeth.

Raph twisted, but the movement only pulled the joint in his shoulder out of place. He squeezed his eyes shut as Tigerclaw's blade made a slash toward his face, but the bright, spine-pinching sound of clashing metal stopped the impact short.

Raphael blinked at the back of his brother's shell as Leo crouched under the intersection of his and Tigerclaw's blades. His heel slipped back an inch as Tigerclaw made himself taller, baring down with more weight, but, while Leo's arms shook, his stance was solid, and within a moment of gritting his teeth, he mustered up enough force to push Tigerclaw back and punt him in the gut. The edge of their blades skimmed across each other and Leo lunged forward, pushing Tigerclaw back as they began a deathly spar.

Raph bit the inside of his lip and jerked forward, putting everything he had into yanking one of the Footbots over his shell and stomping on its face. He ripped his arm out of its grip and threw himself onto the second bot, pulling it down into a headlock and manually tearing its head from its body. He tossed the pieces to the side and recovered his sais.

He heard the grunt of a struggle and glanced toward Karai who had a crease of weakness to her brow. Three Footbots were attempting to hold her at bay. Two were pulling back her wrists and the third had a fist clamped around the back of her hair. And though she delivered a perfect axe kick to the Footbot charging her, her eyes gave away a realization that Raph wished he hadn't seen.

"Raph!"

The red-banded turtle looked back toward his brother whose wide blue eyes also shifted away from Karai. He leapt back to avoid the tip of Tigerclaw's blade and made a swipe toward the tiger's chest.

"Help her!" he said, throwing his katana up to save his neck from being sliced open.

Raph's nose twitched. He began to obey, but when Tigerclaw landed a slash across Leo's shoulder and then kicked him to the ground, Raph's muscles coiled. He began to run for the cat, but halfway there was tackled from the side by Rahzar who pinned him to the ground and snapped his teeth at Raph's face. Raphael swung up a foot that missed and jerked his head to the side to avoid another bite.

"Goongala!"

An eruption of red-hot smoke exploded by Rahzar's head and Raph used both feet to punt him in the chest. Casey was a blur as he skidded through the dissipating smoke and leapt over Raph to bring his hockey stick down toward Rahzar's neck.

Raph's lungs breathed an inaudible sigh, and he allowed Casey to have his moment, ducking around his and Rahzar's tussle to run for Leo again. But he stopped in his tracks when he found his father now fighting by Leo's side, using his freshly sharpened blade to expertly and savagely drive Tigerclaw farther back.

Raph glanced around at a familiar voice and just caught a glimpse of his younger brother darting past him, the last wisps of smoke ribboning his muscles as he ran for Karai's corner and used a borrowed hockey stick to hack down one of the Footbots holding Karai at bay, leaving her room to pull out her juji-ken and stab the one behind her in the gut.

He couldn't explain what he felt, seeing Donnie alive and fighting. He wasn't even sure the thought was being fully processed. But in a second's time it didn't matter, because a chill suddenly dropped down his spine as a presence entered the room and he turned to find the Shredder strolling around the corner, blades out. A swarm of Footbots darted in from behind him like possessed shadows.

Raph blew out two full breaths, then sucked in a third through his nose and readied his stance.

It was like picking off flies. He stabbed one, kicked another, pounced, ripped, and shredded his way through more Footbots than he ever remembered facing. And he only had a spare half second each to notice Splinter sprinting toward the Shredder, Leo being swarmed, Donnie running up to join their father, Casey disappearing from sight, and Tigerclaw pushing himself up from the floor. His cat eyes glinted as he leered at Leo under the mass of Footbots he was fending off.

Raph tried to brake through his own flock, but couldn't find an opening. Every time he tried to make one, another Footbot took the place of the one he'd just dismissed. He couldn't get through to his brother, and Tigerclaw was raising up his laser gun.

"Leo!"

Leonardo's blue eyes glanced up as three throwing stars lodged themselves in Tigerclaw's shoulder. He roared and fired involuntarily, missing Leo and instead shooting one of the Footbot's in the head.

The tiger's growl rumbled the floor of the lobby. He threw down his gun and yanked the stars out of his flesh, shooting a glare across the room toward Karai who sliced off a Footbot's arm and then pointed her juji-ken at him readily. Tigerclaw charged.

"Karai, no!" Leo shouted, his face barely visible through the crowd of Footbots surrounding him.

Raph bared his teeth and pushed his attack ten-fold, taking down Footbots left and right, faster than even he could process. The number circling him finally began to diminish and pile up at his feet instead and he forced his way through them.

Karai managed to dodge a number of Tigerclaw's assaults, but she eventually missed a step and ended up meeting his giant heel with her open ribcage. She flew back with a grunt and collided with a Footbot, landing with it in a heap on the floor. As she blinked and huffed and tried to push herself to her feet, Tigerclaw pulled something out of his pocket.

Raphael didn't know what it was, and he didn't know why every instinctive bone in his body pushed him to get to Karai before Tigerclaw did. He was vaguely aware that he was turning his back on Leo to save the girl he still swore he hated, but he couldn't stop himself either. Maybe he knew he couldn't ignore her anymore. Maybe it finally clicked that, for Leo, losing Karai meant embracing pain and befriending an unhappiness that Raph just didn't feel like witnessing. Not that he only had these few seconds to think about it. It had been bothering him since the day she'd gone missing months ago, and now, finally, he simply decided to stop fighting himself and acknowledge that he could and needed to do something about it.

So, when Tigerclaw reared back his arm and threw the device in his hand the same moment that Karai stood and opened herself up as the perfect target, Raph let all of their past disagreements go and shoved her out of the way just in time to be enveloped by a burst of flames and smoke that knocked him off his feet. The back of his head hit the ground and he didn't think about it anymore.