Lost in the Fight

Chapter 35 - Should'ves

The three turtles had been covertly spying on a few Purple Dragons from a rooftop in Chinatown when Mikey had broken the bad news. At that point, Donnie had neglected to respond to three of the youngest turtle's messages. Thinking maybe something was up with Mikey's T-phone, or perhaps Mikey himself, Leo had promptly fired off a text to his smartest brother, but no response had followed. That had gotten Leo moderately rattled, but when his injured brother had failed to answer his call, that was when the 'fearless' leader had practically gone into hysterics. While Leo 'had a freakin' cow' – as Raph had so eloquently put it – the hotheaded turtle had taken his turn at texting Donnie. Yet again, no response had followed. This had sent Mikey into a tizzy, and in his panic, he had sent the genius turtle two more texts. Still nothing. That was when they had decided to abandon their patrol for the night and rush back to the lair.

As they had scaled across the rooftops and sprinted through the New York City sewers in the direction of the lair, Leo had continued to dial Donnie's number over and over again. With each unanswered call, the blue-masked turtle's stomach condition had grown worse than before. The whole trip home, he hadn't been able to stop himself from thinking about possible worst-case scenarios. His mind kept reverting back to that awful night when Donnie had been critically injured. The night that they had come so close to losing him.

Their minds were all reverting back to that ill-fated night, but none more so than Leonardo's. He couldn't help but to worry that the Shredder may have somehow discovered the location of the lair. Master Splinter had warned Leo that Shredder would stop at nothing to get Donatello now that he knew the second youngest turtle was the brains of the operation. Perhaps Shredder had just been assiduously watching and waiting for an opportunity to strike, like a bloodthirsty predator stalking its prey. Maybe this whole time, he had just been standing by, waiting for the family to leave Donatello alone in the lair so that he and/or his followers could go after the genius turtle again. Just like they had done the night that Tiger Claw and Grizzgore had tried to take Donatello away from them.

What if we played right into Shredder's gauntlets? Leo asked himself.

We should've never left him alone . . .

The sound of Raph growling and nearly ripping the garage door off its tracks snapped Leo out his dark thoughts. Turning his gaze towards the now open door, Leonardo watched on silently as his temperamental brother stormed into the garage with his fists clenched at his sides. The turtle in blue was sure if someone dared to dump a bucket of cold water over Raph right now, steam would literally rise off him. Of course, Leo pitied anyone stupid enough to dump a bucket of water over Raph. The hotheaded turtle would kill them where they stood . . .

Even on a good day, Raphael was a turtle not to be messed with, but the Raphael currently standing before Leo was teetering on the edge of sanity. All the muscles in the volatile turtle's body were corded with tension and every vein he had was about to burst from the fury now coursing through him. Raph didn't deal with stress all that constructively. Mostly, he just broke things.

Leo entered the garage with cautious steps, making sure to keep a safe distance between himself and his unstable sibling. The oldest turtle had no desire to be the thing that Raph broke.

"DONNIE! Get your scrawny shell out here!"

It was painfully obvious that Raphael was struggling through some anger management issues and was in major need of a timeout, but Leo didn't dare suggest this course of action, as he was quite confident that his immediate younger brother would crack his shell open like he was a walnut.

"DONATELLO!" Though Leonardo called out his missing brother's name with far less anger than Raph had, his voice had carried just as much force and volume behind it.