You're Needed Here Now, Donnie

Chapter 6 - Shell-acking

Leo's sensible side won out and he once again rejected the idea of vaporizing the enemy, electing to instead go with what he felt Master Splinter would do. Leo swung his leg around and swept the feet right out from under Rahzar.

The old 'the bigger they are, the harder they fall' idiom proved to be true. Rahzar fell backwards and landed hard on his back with a resonating thud that probably felt even worse than it had sounded . . . and it had sounded pretty bad.

With Rahzar momentarily down for the count, Leo's first inclination was to check on his two brothers, but he had to remind himself that he had precious few seconds to gear up for another attack from Shredder's crony. Leo hopped back a couple of feet and scooped up Raph's discarded sais. They were certainly not his weapon of choice, nor was he all that skilled at using them, but Rahzar didn't necessarily know that.

Rahzar was attempting to push himself back up to his feet when Leo marched up to him and pointed his brother's sais down towards the skeletal mutant. For a moment, Rahzar just sat there, clutching his head in one hand, still slightly disoriented. Leo put on his most intimidating face, hoping his eyes would not betray him and reveal the doubt that he was feeling inside. With two brothers already out of action, he wasn't exactly feeling all that confident, but again, Rahzar didn't necessarily know that.

"Give it up, Bradford, or I will make you sorely regret it!" Leo ordered, trying to sound all volatile and deranged like Raph would have, but he just ended up sounding incredibly cheesy. If Raph would have heard what he had just said, he would have surely called him a hopeless dork.

"Give up? I'm just getting started," Rahzar rasped, and then, he audaciously rose into an upright position despite Leo having his weapons directed right at him, as though he was daring the turtle's leader to make a move. Apparently, Leo's efforts to intimidate the bigger mutant had not been the least bit effective, because Rahzar showed no concern whatsoever for the leader's close proximity or the fact that the turtle was now armed.

Still trying to maintain the illusion of control, Leo assumed a fighting stance and glared up at Rahzar, looking him dead in the eyes. Where Leo had hoped there would be fear, there was arrogance, which was the exact opposite of what Leo was feeling right about now.

"I'm warning you, Bradford! Leave now or I'll be forced to finish you off!" Leo ordered, doing a better job at sounding dangerous this time, but Rahzar still wasn't buying it. Leo couldn't blame him. He wouldn't have bought it either.

"Heh! Don't make me laugh! You don't have the guts to finish me," Rahzar goaded and a pompous grin passed his face. He leaned over Leo menacingly, just toying with the turtle.

The sight of Rahzar's vicious-looking teeth made Leo internally flinch and he didn't even realize that he had stiffened his hold around Raph's sais which were presently only inches away from Rahzar's chest.

Leo gulped down his tension, nearly choking on it, as he tried and failed to come up with some kind of decent response.

As it turned out, he didn't have to.

"No . . . but I do," came a low, rumbling voice from behind Leo.

"Raph!" Leo practically sang out. He then backed away from Rahzar, making sure not to step on Donnie, who was still lying on his side next to the wall where he had fallen. Leo tried his best to push back his mounting sense of horror over the fact that Donnie still showed no signs of waking.

Standing over Donnie's prone form protectively, Leo checked to make sure that he was well out of Rahzar's strike zone before he turned to lay eyes on his brother in red. Raph was standing at the top of the stairs, looking none the worse for wear and seriously teed off. While it was par for the course for Raph to look cranky – even on days where he was supposedly in a "good" mood – the current expression scrawled across his face was a poisonous scowl that he only reserved for special occasions and the most-hated of enemies.