I can't pay anybody offical a large enough amonut of money to convince them I own the TMNT. The Pack neither.

But I can pay you a very large amount of money to pretend I do.

---

They think they're good.

I'm not sure I'm better. But I'll be damned if I go down without a fight. Sort of a Raph thing to say isn't it, but there it is. He'd do the exact same thing if he were here, but he's not. Probably lecture me about going off on my own if I get back to the lair. If.

It's different this time, not so different as that time the Foot hunted me down on the rooftops and…well.

My name is Leonardo.

And I am going to die.

I can feel it. Or maybe that's the million dollar sedative in my bloodstream. I know how much it cost because the woman shooting at me narrated most of the time she and her friends spent shooting at me, complaining about how each dart that missed (most of them, but not by much) would be taken out of their cheque.

Must be a pretty big cheque.

My only hope right now is up, into the scaffolding and drying paint smells. I must remember never to go to ground in the Chrysler Building when it's under construction. It's a nice mass of girders and concealing scaffold sheets laced with crisscrossing ropes spanning ten floors of shadow and high vantage points, provided my targets on a lower level, but it's way too high to be safe for someone in my condition. Let's be honest, even under normal circumstances this would be nuts.

Still don't know how I really made it up here in one piece, clinging to that maniac's axe and ignoring the fact it shouldn't be able to lift us both, let alone fly, because it was getting closer to my face. That and it made my hands hurt. The view is dizzying, insanely small meadows of blotchy street lights that shouldn't be that small. All the surrounding buildings either have their lights totally out or set to that faint headache inducing green of some unseen light source reflecting through office windows, so I'm practically in darkness up here surrounded by massive hulks of black that block any really useful light sources. While I'm trained for it, I really don't want to fight these headcases in the dark. Not half drugged and slowed up like this. Not with how fast they move.

The wind is also absolutely freezing up here, but that's kind of a good thing. My circulation needs something to fight if I'm going to stay upright. It's also pretty much the only thing I know for sure is real right now…

I may be bleeding from the punctured shoulder, it's hard to tell. I've been kind of busy trying to still have veins to pump blood through, difficult when I'm running. Only just got my breathing under control when the dart kicked in and it's hammering against my plastron to get out. Doubt I'd be coherent enough to call in back up even if my cell wasn't just giving me static.

That bugs me because it means someone prepped these guys. Who do I know that's smart enough to know to scramble a shell cell?

Shouldn't stay in the same place for too long, this is a chase, but my legs are sacks of water right now. Feels like if I move they'll burst. How much distance did I manage to get between us?

"Freak's gotta be around here somewhere!"

Great.

"Sister, dearest…do shut it before I peel your face off and ruin that marvellous makeup of yours, mmm?"

Think I'll bring this up whenever anyone gives me grief over any future argument with Raph.

"Both of you can it! Can't see a damn thing up here!"

Damn…thought I lost that guy on the ride over. He's persistent, not as cunning as his namesake, but persistent. I've seen actual wolves before and they've usually got less to prove than this guy. Then again, most wolves aren't bipedal.

Or have weird throwing axes that make them shout something in either Celtic or Norwegian. While flying.

Or hit like freight trains even when they're not doing that.

"Smell him out then!"

"He punched me in the nose!"

"Then why did you keep going? I saw you, you didn't even blink! Just kept yelling and trying to split his head open at five hundred feet! How did your axe do that, hover tech? Since when did you go in for weapons anyway?"

The three of them sounded like their combined age is…three. Let's see if my brain's cleared up enough for me to use that.

//Ah, professionalism.//

That'd be the giant robot.

That face, or half a face, skull, whatever has been bugging me. Think I've seen it somewhere before. Really don't want to meet his hairstylist.

"And where were you when all this was going down, rust bucket?"

Waiting for me three roofs away when I made a break to escape the warehouse these weirdoes tried to pin me down in.

//Charming banter.//

I sink back as far as I can, trying to force the shadows around me into a blanket as the torn metal holographic skull looms into view below, hoping the sound of my fingers clamping around my shoulder from the explosion underneath dosen't attract their attention. Something cartwheels out of my stomach and my throat is suddenly an outline of scratching glass, widening to let that something back up. Not happening. Turtle survival guide 101: do not throw up on the giant robot.

//Jackal, Hyena, take the upper levels. I'll take point after I check the lower floors. Wolf?//

"Yeah?"

//Try not to break anything.//

Jackal, Hyena, Wolf, Coyote…who named these guys, Hasbro?

I take a breath, crouching down under the rail, waiting. Footsteps and muffled hydraulics spread out, go faint…but that's no reason to assume they're not still up here. I slide under the rail, grabbing one of the beams rather than risking a fall from this high up. Or on top of furry Celtic axe guy.

It takes a second longer than it should, but I make it to the upper level, balanced on a girder and listening. Nothing. I cross as best I can, dropping clumsily to the scaffolding. I fight vertigo, deadlier than all four of the freaks hunting for me. A ledge that might feed out onto one of the building's gargoyles is just a little bit in front of me. A better hiding place if I can ju--

"Gotta be up here."

Jackal.

"Stop. Saying. That."

Hyena.

"You do not get cranky with me. I remember Egypt."

"I was only having fun."

But I'm not listening of course. I'm too busy trying to ignore the burning cold urge to sleep as I hoist myself under the next rail, reaching out for the ledge, trying to figure out which one of the five in front of me is real. My hand bumps against something, a soft pillow exploding in the dark above the street sounds, and all of my trembling muscles go still, trying to find out if they heard that.

They didn't. Okay…

I force my other hand up there and start navigating beams, palming my way across to the left hand side of the scaffolding and trying to slip into the cover of the lower level. Some sort of make shift office has been set up there, and if I drop down there I can make my way to the construction crane and either try and tightrope my way to the next roof or get into the guts of the Chrysler and try and…take the elevator or something. Get out of here anyway…

And that's when Hyena opens fire.

---

Ask just about anyone, usually somebody who's fought alongside us, and they'll tell you Mike's greatest weakness is the fact he. Never. Stops. Talking.

They couldn't be more wrong.

"C'mon, Leo…"

"I don't know Mike…"

"C'mon!"

"Okay, Snake Eyes! But only because I have a vague idea who that is."

"Dude, how can you not know who Deadpool is?"

"I've never even seen the movie."

"Hey, I'm not proud that I read X-Force back in the day, but Nicieza is God, man."

"He's gonna win." Raph mumbled into his arm. He got taken out on the fourth hand. He'd taken it with grace. For Raph. Slamming the table, crushing an entire crate worth of soda cans and then pouting into his arms. That's…something. It was just me, Mike and the TV remote for a whole nigh laid out on the table between us and the stacks of chips.

"He's not going to win, Raph."

"Your talkin' to him. He's gonna win."

"They've been talking for the last four hands, Raph." Don had given up after the last two had wiped him out and was trying to make the toaster give birth or something.

"He's still gonna win."

"You think I'm gonna win, Leo?"

"Maybe if this was the Battle Nexus."

Don winced.

"Low blow, bro."

"Hey, I'm proud of you for that."

I picked another card.

"I'm just saying."

We shared a smirk. He pushed his chips across the table. All in.

"You hear me now, fearless leader?"

I resisted looking at my hand as I pushed it all across. All in.

"You have to be at risk to be really fearless."

I couldn't help myself. I smirked. I forget whether or not he ever did say it, but I'm pretty sure one of Sun Tzu's rules should have been "Never gloat." I mean, how often does the hero roll to safety while the caped and cowled Doctor Evil-Face cackles to himself over how he's going to take over Australia instead of doing something useful like curing athlete's foot? But I just flat out couldn't help myself.

"Straight flush, bro."

I'm not a mean guy, at least I would very much like to think I'm not a mean guy, but in those five seconds I wanted Mike to…cry or something.

"Oh yeah. That's pretty cool."

I got up, took the remote and tried not to smile too much as I thought about Shindler's List triumphing over Back To The Future. Not too much.

"If, y'know, you don't have one of these."

I went still enough to make Jimmy Hoffa look like a hyperactive gnat. The table treacherously turned me back towards it with it's own personal gravity. Forced me to look dead on at the cards in Mike's hands. It was so painful I had to glare mournfully at the TV screen. The big shiny one. Which gave him a perfect view of my face.

Five of a kind.

Mike giggled from behind me.

---

"She shoots…"

Jackal's smirk is the kind people make sure to put in jail. I keep having to remember I'm eighteen in a couple of months and not a three year old child. I've got the pile of scaffolding pressing down on my shell to keep my mind off it. Master Splinter always did say small comfort is still comfort…

"She scores over five million and a whole heap of new shoes."

Hyena cocks the rifle, that same smirk turning one corner of her lips up. In the darkness and semi consciousness I can see Jackal slinking up behind her, so over confident he isn't even brining up his rifle.

"Right. After I tenderised him."

"Oh, get lost before I tenderise you."

Now or never.

"Did you two argue this much in Egypt?"

The effect is instant.

"What?"

"That's personal, you freak!"

"I thought you were over it!"

"YOU TURNED ME INTO A BABY!"

Okay…Draco is officially not the strangest thing I've ever heard of. Ultimate Draco even.

They've dissolved into yelling and chest poking, giving me enough time to brace against the floor, bringing both legs down onto that one board that doesn't look as healthy as the others. They half turn as I grunt, but that's all they get before the half finished job gives way. Typical New York craftsmanship. I'm not sure but they may blame each other all the way down. Not that that's my problem anymore.

Wolf coming at me head on with his axe, that's my problem.

I don't quite make it. The blade scrapes off my shell as I pound my way out of the wreckage. Everything snaps into this nauseous green black vertigo world, only really going away in time for me to realise I'm sailing off the walkway straight for the middle of small foreman's office set up on the lower level. Thanks a bunch.

To minimize the approaching pain, since I'm too floppy to try anything useful, I think about that stupid axe. I've been struck by axes before (in my kind of lifestyle you get struck by everything eventually. Talk to Casey sometime, he's got some weird ones) and this…didn't feel right. Hurt, yeah, but it feels like someone (The Shredder) picked me up and flung me. That's noPaInPaInPaInPaiN

Didn't work. Broke a desk in half too. And a fluorescent light. On the way through the ceiling. How is my body still working?

I roll onto my beak, starting the countdown for my little big friend to come hacking his way in here. The point where the axe hit me stands out under my sheaths against the red pounding of my shell plating. It tingles with a smell like silver and a cold like old caves. I'm beginning to think this thing is magic on top of everything else. Crap.

Wolf blows down the door a little later than I figured, not that I'm complaining. He steps over the splintered freshold and looks around. Pretty quite and careful about it. Ex-Marine? The axe steers him into the room. I'm not sure if it's actually him looking around.

"Don't need eyes to see you, shellback. I can see you in the dark in high definition with these eyes and I can sure as hell smell you out even if I don't hear you first with these great big ears…"

Yeah, but you're not smart enough to use any of them and talk at the same time, are you?

If he was he wouldn't be poking around in the next room over with the big obvious open door next to the shattered desk where anybody in my condition would go.

That's why I hid behind the water cooler after I opened the other door.

It takes everything I (almost) don't have left to pick it up and hit him over the head with it until it breaks. My arms are wet cardboard tubes at the end of it and Wolf reeks like an overdone sirloin steak covered in rainwater. Since my feet still feel like rocks I almost break one of them kicking him in the ass into the next room. I slam the door shut on him with an unsatisfying thump and sprint (well…gprint) on my trembling, singing feet to the next room.

He comes through the entire wall next, roaring and leering his head around a little too fast to be human. I let him see my eyes through the small windows that connects the two rooms. That always freaks them out, gives us a few seconds. I focus and punch clean through one of the windows, taking care to grab his stupid wanna-be Chuck Norris beard (it's personal) and slam his face into what's left of the glass after I make contact. I get a grip on his face, digging both fingers into his eyes, and shove him away so he trips over the desk on his way down.

The axe drags him to his feet, but I'm already in the other room by then. I think the drugs starting to clear up, I managed to bolt the door and put my weight against it without passing out. For all the good it does me.

The axe head punches through the door like it's paper, giving Wolf a perfect little people hole to growl at me through. What big eyes he has. In a moment of pure insanity one of Master Splinter's favourite shows leaps into my brain. I don't go 'Nyuck nyuck' because even if I wanted to I'd probably throw up, but I do manage to poke him in the eye. I think that made him mad. He starts pounding against the door until it jolts out of the frame. I can use that, forcing what little I'm not sure I have anymore into my shoulders and letting my shell do the rest of the work. I send it crashing into him, flopping down after it and pinning him.

For about two seconds.

The universe screams past my head and into the axe, and I realise Wolf never once let go of it through this entire insane night. The door volcanoes into my still smarting shell. I barley manage to roll with it as I hit the ground and when I finally get back to my feet pieces of stucco and glass roll off my shoulders.

I think about going for the shuriken in my belt but I don't think they'd do any good. Not up against magic. Wolf lets out a sound that's the most animal he's ever sounded and is all the more human for that. The axe drags him into the air, dangling him almost to the ceiling then floating down soundlessly. And when his head comes back down his face is…different.

"Now you face a true warrior, reptile!"

I don't bother to ask what happened to his voice. I'm trying to save my breath to glimp up the half exposed stairwell. The one I'll never climb in time to even think about running.

---

Sometimes people make the mistake of assuming Don's a pacifist.

He's not, not exactly.

He just knows when to pick his battles. Like when he should give up and let me get him out of the lab.

"If I do this, will you leave me alone?"

Twelve was such a reasonable age.

"You just built the thing, Donnie. You've been in there for five nights now. Sensei's getting worried."

"I already talked to Sensei, Leo. He was okay with it so long as I finished up at eleven."

I don't think we liked each other too much back then. We both knew the other was smart, we just didn't know if he was smarter than we were. Or if he thought he was.

"He wants to make sure you get at least one sparring session in during the afternoon. He's out with Mikey and Raph getting supplies, and he left me in charge."

"Yeah, he's been doing that a lot lately."

I haven't though about it in a long time…but I'm still not sure what he meant by that.

"Yeah. So come on? Please?"

I knew how to pick my battles too. Best way to win? Hit them with something they don't expect then take them down hard. My genuinely asking shook him up. My next move floored him.

"One match. You win…however, whenever…I leave you alone. Other than making sure you eat, that'll be it."

He hesitated, calculating.

"So one sparing session and that's it, right? You'll leave me alone."

"Yeah."

"Yeah?"

This was getting irritating. I put on my best Raph face. Where do you think Raph got his best Raph face?

"Yeah."

"Forever?"

That shook me up.

"Huh?"

"Other than making sure I eat. You let me work in the lab for as long as I want and don't try this again unless Splinter says…forever."

Getting him out onto the mat was one thing. This? This was progress. There's a reason human beings are horrifically nostalgic creatures. Progress is scary. I knew how they felt.

"Um…sure. O-okay…"

He stuck out his hand with his best Mike grin on. I took it numbly. Where do you think Mike--

"Great! Shoe lace untied by the way."

A week later we had to change the mat because it started smelling like pickled sweat socks. I know the smell so well because after Don flipped me I was left with the taste embroidered on my tongue forever.

"So, yeah." Don breezed "I win forever."

I wasn't about to go down without a fight.

"What kind of move was that!?"

He shrugged.

"The kind that works?"

I was too busy laughing to stay mad. That night we had grilled cheese.

---

Wolf, or whatever is driving Wolf's body like Casey on his Harley at rush hour, comes baring down on me. The axe goes back and up, glistens in the poisonous moonlight like it's smiling, and comes down.

On thin air.

Maybe I can't climb the stairwell in time, but I can sure as hell push myself to the right and let him throw himself axe first into it. I'm already down as the blade comes screaming around, more out of exhaustion than actual reflex. Punching someone magically possessed (assuming that's what this is) doesn't usually work most of the time because the smarter ghosts and ghouls don't like themselves up to the host's nervous system. Fortunately as fast as it is, this things still dragging around 300 pounds worth of metahuman strength.

I grab his wrist, one potato, grab the axe handle, two potato, and kick Wolf in the stomach to add momentum as I hurl him down the stairwell. At worst that's thirteen floors. Maybe removing the axe will short him out or something and keep him down longer. Speaking of which…this things fighting like a snake. A big metal snake that can hack my skull in two. Not cleave. That's too clean. Hack.

My arm burns with Slavic cold, war drums chant deep in my brain, fires, Scottish earth, an angry bearded face…trying to be my face…

I swing the axe around with all the strength it's trying to give me and drive it as far as I can into a girder.

The heat comes back, which is to say the temperature level rises back up to normal New York winter night levels. I fumble my way through the shadows and into the actual building, listening for the sound of metal footsteps. One of the tower's windows got blown open in the fire fight. Wonder if that entitles them to a discount. Gives me easy access to the chairman's office. I wonder if that should make me feel important. Like should I steal a fountain pen or something just to prove I've been all the way up here.

I make my way through a desert made of identical offices, trying to pretend it's just the starlight that's making the shadows waver and grow darker like that. But there's no windows down here. Still can't run, but the taste of my saliva is coming back into my mouth and my breathing's back under control. I wonder if I should try the cell again but that'd probably tip off whoever's left to avoid that I'm down here. Just for the satisfaction of actually doing something I yank the dart out of my arm and toss it into somebody's waste paper basket. There's a picture of their family at Mt. Rushmore on their desk.

In it's own way, this has been…I won't say fun. But there's a reason I'm out here tonight.

Raph's not the only one who needs to get out on his own now and then. Leading my team? Being a member of my family? Tell you what, you try staying in on a Saturday all day, all night after fifteen years of that crap. And no, I don't resent being put in charge. No, I don't resent them. Any of them.

But we've all gone out on our own and played superhero at least a million times. Only difference is Raph has to be so damn showy about it. Like he ever had the market cornered on solo gigs.

Maybe it's the last of the drug in my system (when's that going away, indecently?) or the adrenaline rush or just the fact that deep down I really do have a wannbe Harrison Ford complex, but it's great to know I've almost gotten through this completely on my own.

I'm in what must have been a lobby before the work set up. The papers still aren't sure what happened to the building exactly, maybe something to do with that robot invasion one of the superheroes took on, but this floor took the worst of it. Most of the place is taped off. A gutted elevator bank leers at me, looks like the total 70 floor drop. I almost feel sorry for Wolf. Master Splinter's fault for raising me right.

Way too far for me to climb even if I trusted the elevator cable. I back off over the ruined floor, slipping between the tape and cleaning ladders. I duck under one of the many exposed electrical cables dangling from the ceiling. The door's locked and I have no idea where it goes anyway but it's the only other way out. Shouldn't take too long to pick it.

At least it wouldn't if I'd gotten the chance.

//Clever.//

Coyote gestures with it's giant cannon hand. Why do people always build those things into robots? I hate guns, but I can appreciate the fact you need your eyes to aim. Make one out of your arm and it's useless up close hand to hand because you can't aim it and at long distances you have to point where you want the lasers to go and anyone with a quarter brain can see that. Horrific stance. Totally broadcasts your moves.

//I'll admit anyone with the proper skill set could dispatch my associates with relative ease, but even drugged you're quite adept at this. I almost wondered if their was actually a reason you were marked the second highest threat in our dossier.//

I put my hands up and back away from the door, forcing my eyes to stay on the half face and not gravitate back to the cannon.

"Tell Bishop I resent that."

It's strange that whenever the actual face smiles the Terminator skull side looks angry.

//Very clever.//

"Not really. The dart was a dead giveaway."

Black Ops people tend to favour function through form in their equipment. Lots of streamlining and no discernable markings, which means if you know anything about low profile government organisations they may as well sign it in neon.

//This(slight gesture with the cannon)is understandably more powerful than a tranquilizer dart and keyed to your particular body temperature.//

"I'm very happy for you."

It gets a shot in with that thing at this range…if I'm not dead I'm down and I'm vulnerable and that's as good as the same thing.

So I do the only sane thing I can. I draw my sword and rush the bastard.

---

We were thirteen then. Reckless. Cocky.

"I hate you."

Surprisingly little has changed.

"Don't be that way."

"I do." Raph pushed himself up. "I really frigging hate you."

"Your just mad because I got you to come train with me instead of watching that stupid movie."

Later I'd learn he could get a lot more in my face than that, but back then the speed with which he violated my personal space almost gave me a heart attack.

"Ramblo ain't stupid!"

"Uh huh."

"Hey! It ain't!"

He was just starting to get the accent, who knows how, but I think it may have been one of the things that put up a bit of a barrier between us. Before, you know, the whole suicidal hot head thing.

"It isn't."

"That's what I said!"

"Well you shouldn't miss practice just because of a stupid movie."

"It ain't stupid! An' I can practice by myself!"

"You won't learn anything that way, Raph."

"It's Raphael!"

Yeah, that was another one of his things back then.

"You won't learn anything if you don't practice."

"So I'll learn other stuff!"

"Like what?"

"There's this one guy in this one movie--"

"Oh this ought to be good."

"Shut up! An' he sez--gimme a minute, I'll get it--"

I'd had enough.

"Name the movie."

"Uh--"

"You can't, can you?"

It was one of the few times I'd seen him hang his head in defeat.

"Yeah, well because you were so busy watching your stupid movie, you lost this match. Because you didn't learn anything."

I stormed out of the dojo. And he thinks I'm an asshole now.

"Leo?"

I made the mistake of turning around.

He caught me right in the back of the shell, tricky bastard. Sent us both rolling through the dojo door. I think maybe we knocked over a weapons rack, I was kind of too busy to tell. We got both our idiotic asses dragged off by Master Splinter and sent to work doing each others chores as well as our own (can't really remember how that worked.) But five or so seconds before Sensei crossed the lair from his room to where we'd landed, Mike's drink soaking my bandana tails, and grabbed us each by the shoulders and dragged us to said room, Raph grinned at me.

"Timing is everything."

---

Remember how I said he'd finish me if got a shot in with that thing? How it would kill me?

I was right.

At least I would have been if he wasn't stupid enough to have gotten that close. With my back to the elevator shaft.

Remember how I said it was useless up close?

I slide under him, eyes tight shut against the sparks from my blade against his canine ankle. His last few drunken steps send him on a crash course with the edge of the shaft, cannon and claw pin wheeling uselessly. We exchange eye contact before his tank sized shoulders drag him down.

//Ah.// he says, like I just explained how a door cannot be a door.

And then he's gone.

And I--

---

Passed out. Don't panic.

I take a breath, which is a very smart thing to do. I get to my feet, which is a very stupid thing to do. Since it's the only place available at short notice, I lean out as far as I dare over the shaft and vomit down into the shadows.

That has to be the last of the drug by now.

My hands are shaking, so I get into position in the middle of the floor once I've got my breath back and concentrate, like Father taught me. They're red hot with cold but steady when I finally pick the lock on the door and make my way to the stairwell. I need a window that backs out onto somewhere.

Halfway between the 39th and 40th floors I find Wolf, still unconscious. He's going to feel like hell when he wakes up. Probably more from the fact his ear is talking than all those steps.

Hesitantly, carefully, I pluck the Bluetooth headset from his ear. The voice on the other end is so familiar I almost roll my eyes.

"Coyote? Damn it Coyote, you maladjusted mecanoid mishap! I didn't go to the trouble of stealing you from my former employer and reprogramming you to round up your trained monkeys just to go offline on me now! Coyote!"

"Stockman."

The line goes quiet as the grave. I can really sound like Batman whenever the hell I want.

"I don't care if this is Bishop's pet project or your own. Don't. Do it. Again."

"Of--of course, Michelangelo…"

It's been too long a night for me to care.

I crush the headset and toss it down the shaft on my way out. Maybe it hits Coyote's body when it reaches the bottom, I don't stick around to hear it. I don't even bother to check if Coyote's still down there. (He isn't. There'll be no mention of him in the papers tomorrow.)

I activate the homing beacon in my now back online cell, arrange for a pick up with a hysterical Don in the specified alley we picked out years ago, and watch the police lights arriving as I huddle into the shadows on the roof of the Calyon Building. I survived this round all on my own. Well…maybe with a little help. But if I can do this once, I can do it again. Just think what I'll do tomorrow. With my team, my family, watching my back. How I'll keep watching theirs for as long as it takes until they can do this on their own. And even then…

My name is Leonardo.

And I am going to die.

But I'll be damned if it's today.

---

The Batman in question is Rino Romano of the much maligned The Batman cartoon. He would be the best Leo EVER and I will bore you to death with this fact until you agree with me.