Crash and Burn
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Chapter Ten: Last Stand
***
Raphael put on his hat as he headed for the door. As he passed through the living room he felt something hit the back of his head. It didn't hurt, but it got his attention. He turned towards Leo, who was sitting in one of the armchairs with his feet propped up on the table. Raph looked down at the piece of crumpled newspaper at his feet, then back up at Leo.
Where are you going? was written on the chalkboard.
"Man, I can't get away from it even when you're mute!"
Leo pointed down to the message with a smirk on his face.
"To Kali's alright? Geez." He turned back and walked down the tunnel. "I hope you get better soon," he called over his shoulder. "So I can tell you to SHUT UP!"
***
When Raphael stepped into Kali's apartment, a sense of panic rushed through him at the sight of the mess. Then he realized that it was the same mess from the other night.
"Kali?" he called out, stepping over a tipped over potted plant. He heard movement from the bedroom and headed in that direction. He stopped at the door and knocked softly. "Kali?"
"I'm up, I'm up," he heard, then footsteps approaching the door. There were a few seconds of silence before Kali opened the door and smiled at him. "Hey."
"Hey," he replied. "Thought you were coming back to the lair after taking It home."
Kali gave him a mock glare. "Do not refer to my childhood friend as an 'it'."
Raph smiled. "I'm sorry." A sincere apology from Raphael was rare, and this was one of those rare times.
Kali threw her arm around his neck and kissed his cheek. "So, wanna help me clean up?"
Raphael looked back at the destroyed living room. "Um, raincheck?"
Kali rolled her eyes. "You could have at least done some cleaning while I was gone."
Raph shrugged. "I haven't been here since that night."
"What?"
"I said I haven't been here."
Kali blinked a few times, then tried to reach her arm out to grab something. Raphael thought she looked about ready to faint, so he guided her over to the couch, shoving some papers and trash off the cushions. "What's wrong?"
Kali took a deep breath. "My aunt said the building manager noticed someone at my apartment while I was gone. I thought it was you, or maybe one of your brothers."
"If they were here, none of them mentioned it," Raphael told her. "Cleaning up does seem like a good idea, this place is starting to reek badly."
Kali sniffed. It didn't smell that bad to her, but living up in a landscape of brimstone will do that to you. And she doubted Raphael minded, since his home was a sewer after all, he was used to strong smells. But it did smell, like something was rotting. "I wasn't gone that long."
She went over to the kitchen, and opened the fridge. It was probably the only thing in the apartment left untouched. It was still on, and everything seemed fine in there. "Well, it's not the food."
"Some of these plants look pretty bad," Raphael commented.
"Yeah, could be." Kali shut the door and turned around. "Anyway, I should... Shit!"
Raphael looked at Kali and turned to follow her gaze. A dark, hunched over figure was silhouetted against the window, unrecognizable to the eye, but they both knew exactly who it was.
The shadow dropped what it was holding, a human body. A girl, most of her covered in blood, very dead.
Raphael drew his sai and stood between Kali and the window. Kali was already focusing up the power to fight.
Shredder lifted his head and glared at them with lifeless bloodshot eyes.
***
"Okay, Leo, I'm done."
Leo sat up on the examination bed and rubbed his neck. The soreness had dulled, but he wasn't sure if it was just from the painkillers or if he was healing well. He tapped Don on the shoulder to get his attention away from the drawer he was sifting through.
"Oh, you're doing great, Leo! The area's just a little swollen and irritated, no damage to your vocal chords. It's like having laryngitis, your voice'll come back."
Leo growled to himself. Yeah, he remembered laryngitis, and he remembered how much he hated it.
"Oh, and if you feel up to it, you can eat anything you want, just take it slow."
Leo saluted him and leapt off the table. He left the infirmary and headed for the dojo. Maybe a workout would help him get his mind off things, it always did.
As he approached the dojo he could hear the sounds of someone else working out. Couldn't be Don or Raph, and the fact he could hear it told him it wasn't Splinter. That left Mike, but Mike hardly ever practiced unless Splinter called for it.
Leo stood at the entrance to the dojo and watched Mike go through the routine. Even though Mike wasn't the strongest or necessarily the best fighter of the bunch, he did have a unique and unpredictable style that served them well in battle. As much as Leo lectured his brothers about how they fought, he knew that there was strength in their differences.
Mike finished and bowed before an invisible partner before going over to rest. He spotted Leo as he reached to pick up his towel and stood up as his brother approached. He smiled and asked, "You good?"
Leo smiled and nodded, then realized that he lad left his board in the other room. No problem, he and his brothers often communicated without words. But not like this, a voice in his brain said.
"Hey, Leo?"
Leo looked Mike in the eyes to show that he was paying attention. Yeah?
Mike shifted a bit. "Well, I just wanna say I'm sorry." Leo gave him a questioning look. "About what happened last week." He pulled the towel around the back of his neck and sighed. "I know I was way out of line, and I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. I'm just kinda... frustrated, ya know?"
Leo know exactly what he meant, and gave his arm a squeeze to show him it was all right. He made a mental note to have a long talk with Mike as soon as he could.
"My sons!"
They both turned at Splinter's exclamation. Their sensei was standing in the doorway looking distressed.
"Raphael and Kali are in great danger," he told them.
Neither of them questioned it for a second. All Michaelangelo asked was, "Where?"
Leo knew where, Kali's apartment, that's where Raph was going. Splinter nodded towards him and Leo grabbed Mike's arm. They picked Don up from the infirmary on the way out.
"Now, wait, Leo, you shouldn't be fighting this soon!" Don cried.
Leo put his fists on his hips and glared at him as if to say You said I could!
"I mean, technically, there could be problems..."
Mike just tossed him his bo. "Then we'll watch his back! Can we go now before we're short one brother and family friend?"
***
Raphael spun his sai around his fingers as he stared Shredder down. The undead ninja master stared back with dead eyes. It gave Raph the creeps.
"Oh, man," he heard Kali groan behind him. "He's been living in my apartment."
"What a wonderful sense of priorities you have," Raph snarled at her.
Shredder struck his arm out, but Raphael easily reflected the hit. Ol' Shredhead didn't seem to have the same speed he did when he was alive, but he was a lot stronger and practically invulnerable, Raph realized, noticing the two puncture wounds in Shredder's side.
"Okay, babe," Raph said. "Got a plan?"
"Wear him down," Kali said, standing beside Raph. He could make out her demon features from the corner of his eye, so he felt a little better about going up against this monster. Though honestly, he wasn't quite sure about the plan. He was kinda hoping she had some magical do-hickey that would destroy Shredder or something.
"He needs flesh and life energy to sustain himself," Kali explained quickly. "We need to tired him out and keep him from feeding."
Raphael nodded. Okay, fight the super strong invulnerable zombie ninja until his batteries burn out. Yeah, sounds like a plan.
***
Mike reached down to help Leo out of the sewers but his brother ignored it. Mikey frowned, but figured his brother was just being proud. Then he smiled, that was a sign Leo was getting back to normal.
"Okay, just-" Don was interrupted by the sound of breaking glass. They all looked up, then ducked down as far into their shells as they could manage as glass shards rained down on them from above. An end table smashed and splintered against the brick wall.
Leo gave them both a shove to get moving as his rushed ahead to the ladder.
The scene inside was shocking. Raphael and Kali were standing off to one side of the room. Kali looked like she had that night so many weeks ago, black eyes and horns, and the very air around her seemed electrified somehow. Raphael held one sai tightly while the other was embedded in shredder's shoulder. Even if he had it, it would do him no good, his left arm was hanging limply at his side.
Leo slipped into the window slowly, glad the Shredder's back was to him. He tried to keep himself in check, but the memories of what had happened to him were fresh in his mind. He'd make sure that Shredder was gone for good this time. He'd never bother this family again.
Raphael locked eyes with Leo and exchanged information without a word.
Mike crawled into the apartment and nearly gagged. It smelled like something had died in here. He stepped into something and looked down. He jumped back at the sight of the dead body and the puddle of blood he had stepped into. His shell hit the wall with a sharp thud. His eyes went wide as Shredder turned to him.
The ninja zombie jumped towards him, but Leo pushed Mike to the side, and Shredder smashed into and windowsill instead of Mike. It sounded like he broke something, most likely his shoulder, but Shredder didn't seem to notice, he was totally oblivious to the pain.
"He doesn't have much left," Kali whispered to Raph.
Raphael nodded. "So, after he's down, how do we take him out for good?"
"Leave that to me."
Raphael didn't like the tone in which she said that, but he nodded anyway. He didn't mind that she was a demon, but that didn't mean it didn't creep him out every now and then when he thought about what she did. But then again, he was a trained assassin, who was he to judge?
Donatello kicked Shredder from his place out on the fire escape. He fell back onto the floor and Don crawled inside. Shredder was already back on his feet.
Leo looked around. There wasn't enough room for a fight in here. It wasn't a small apartment, but six... seven bodies took up quite a bit of space. There was no room to maneuver, but they couldn't take this outside and risk Shredder getting away again. Leo held his swords out in front of him and prepared to attack.
This time he was prepared for Shredder's attack and fell back, bracing his feet against Shredder's chest and kicking him over his head and into the wall. He rolled up from the ground and rushed over to finish it the same way he had last time.
"Leo, watch out!"
He heard Mike's warning too late and Shredder's hand latched onto his ankle and pulled him down to the ground. Mike was up in a second with his chucks. He swung them a few times for momentum and brought them both down on the back of Shredder's neck as he pinned down Leonardo.
There was a loud crack of breaking bone and Leo shoved the body away. They all tensed as Shredder once again rose to his feet, his neck bent at an odd angle, his head not able to stay upright. Kali picked up one of the stools from the floor and swung it at his head. It spun around nearly three hundred and sixty degrees.
Shredder staggered around for a few more seconds before tripping over a broken table. Raphael looked at Kali in surprise. She just dropped the stool and stepped forward with a smirk on her face.
"Is he dead?" Donatello asked, careful is stay out of reach in case he wasn't.
"Well, of course, he's a zombie," Kali replied. "If you mean is he defeated, pretty much. That's the problem with zombies like this, they're oblivious to almost any injury, but can't heal."
They all jumped at the sound of a knock on the door.
"NYPD, open up."
Kali grabbed the doorknob, then looked back to make sure all the guys were gone. She opened the door and came face to face with a tall African American man in uniform. She realized that she was splattered with blood, and that the apartment behind her was in shambles and that she had two dead bodies on her floor.
"Hello officer, is there something I can help you with?"
***