A Brother's Intuition

After the Fall

The first thing he felt was the pain. Pain, pain, pain. Waves and waves of searing pain. He was in agony.

Every breath was a battle. Even the air was cold and unforgiving as every inhale burned his throat and set fire to his chest. His eyelids snapped open and he glanced dazedly around. What happ—oh yeah. Shredder had thrown him off the side of the building. It seemed like the impact had made a small crater in the sidewalk.

Leo grit his teeth. His fingers dug heavily into the cracks in the cement as he pushed himself up. His body ached and his head spun. He could hear his heartbeat thumping noisily in his ears. In fact, he heard very little else. Just a dull, ringing whine. He recoiled instinctively as a voice sudden cut through the white noise.

"You'll pay for what you did to Leo and Raph!"

Raph! Where was Raph? Leo thought, suddenly too frantic to think of anything other than his younger sibling. Despite his body's protest, he stood, straining his neck to look up at the roof above. He straightened and finally looked over at the alley directly across from him. A fire escape. Leo's bright blue eyes narrowed with renewed determination.

Once he was on the roof, he approached the battle from the side. A low cloud had rolled in and surrounded the building with a layer of fog. It was so thick that as Leo looked back over his shoulder, he could no longer see the ground below. The blue-masked turtle ducked over to the side and assessed the situation. His brothers and father were barely holding their own. They all bore dark bruises and angry wounds. From the looks of things, they wouldn't be able to last much longer.

Shredder flung Michelangelo backwards and the youngest landed with a thud. He stood, cradling his arm weakly, his eyes brimming with pain. Splinter and Donnie instinctively drew closer to shield Mikey as Shredder's blade flashed. Shredder laughed deeply, the guttural sound making all of them shudder. "Fools. You cannot defeat me!"

Leo slunk out of the shadows, scooping his katana up off the roof as he went. "Maybe not alone. But they aren't alone."

Shredder whirled around to face him and growled.

"Leo!" The others exclaimed with joy and relief.

Leo kept his attention fixed on Shredder. The leader of the Foot Clan glared at the turtle. "I'm finding you turtles very hard to dispose of."

"You'll never beat us, Shredder. As long as we're together," Leo shot a brief smile in his brothers' direction, "we can do anything." He gave the others a signal and they all charged at once, landing several good hits to Shredder's sides.

With a cry of indignation, Shredder held his ground. "You will all share your brother's fate!" He shouted as he threw them all back a couple of feet.

Something behind Shredder caught Leo's eye. Raph's body. Leo smirked as his sharp vision detected the way Raph's hand tightened around the sai that had been placed there earlier. He turned to his brothers and father. "Don't give up! One more time! Together!"

They all nodded and with a tremendous leap, simultaneously engaged the Shredder. "Donnie!" Leo shouted as he shielded his little brother from what would have been a deadly blow. He struggled as his katana locked with Shredder's gauntlet blades. Shredder pressed him back and down until he was practically on his knees.

"You cannot overpower me!"

Leo smiled as Shredder pushed him back even further, "I wasn't trying to."

Shredder's eyes went wide. The polished steel of Raph's sai, dripping red with blood, glinted ominously as the hothead yanked it out.

Donnie and Mikey didn't believe their eyes and were too shocked to do anything other than stand there with their mouths hanging open.