This story was an experiment of sorts, so I'm a little wary of it being the first piece I publish to FF.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?
(Hint hint! I'm hoping to gain reviews :) Each and every comment will be appreciated!)
Warning: This story is focused around character death.
I do not own TMNT or the characters herein.
Characters may or may not be OOC.
Mistakes made are entirely my own.

And with that out of the way, enjoy :)

For Them

Waking from unconsciousness, Raphael's ears were ringing loudly. He sat up slowly, plugged his nostrils, closed his mouth, and forced the dusty air from his lungs into his throat and nasal cavity, popping his ears. It had little effect. Shakily standing from a pile of rubble and dead Foot ninja, Raphael rubbed his eyes, trying to force them to see after the flash from the blast had temporarily stolen his sight. His surroundings foggy, he spotted a green figure ten yards behind him, making it out to be Mikey. Frantically glancing around the fresh ruins, he didn't recognize anything else through the haze curtaining his vision.

Treading carefully but deliberately, Raphael quickly worked his way over to his kneeling brother. As he crouched beside him, Raphael immediately noticed blood, the tangy metallic smell alerting him to its presence more than the sight of it, his inability to see it due as much to his hindered vision as to it being late into the evening and everything lying swathed in deep shadows.

"Mikey," he said, futilely attempting to mask the panic in his voice. "Mikey, are you okay? Are you hurt? There's blood, and-"

"It's theirs," he interrupted in a hoarse whisper. Raphael assumed his brother was referring to the vast amount of ninja strewn throughout what had previously been a hideout disguised as a private storage facility. The after effects of the explosion finally wearing off, Raphael's stomach twisted into a painful knot as he recalled what had happened.

It was not the Foot ninja's blood Mikey had been alluding to.

xxxxxxx

Donnie had found the hideout easily. The Foot hadn't even tried to block the signal being emitted from the locator chip embedded in Splinter's neck, the tiny grain of technology finally proving useful nearly five years after Don had convinced the family of mutants to let him implant them. It was clearly evident that the pathetic kidnapping of their Sensei was the lure at the end of a poorly planned fishing line, the Foot curiously desperate to reel the Turtles into their so-called trap.

It was a better trap than they had expected. So obvious, and familiar, in its deranged simplicity, the brothers and accompanying redhead and hockey mask adorning vigilante had been led like sheep to a slaughter.

Their shepherd; the Shredder.

They had all paused in shock when they entered one of many long buildings, the arched ceiling and cement walls and floor echoing the scuffling of their nervous feet. At the far end of the structure Master Splinter was bound and gagged, perched atop and roped to a lone shipping crate that was roughly the size of a refrigerator lying on its side. Next to the crate had stood what they at first thought must be a figment of their imaginations. That or an extraordinarily unamusing practical joke.

This was not the first time the Shredder had come back after supposedly being killed, but it was certainly the most baffling. The last time the Turtles had encountered and defeated him was nearly three years ago. Why had the villain decided to come back now? How had he come back? What was he planning this time that allowed for such lame trapping tactics?

As though reading their thoughts, the Shredder had spoken in a loud, confident voice, raising it just enough for it to be heard across the expanse of the building.

"Turtles," he yelled, "you need not worry."

Puzzled, the group had collectively taken a step forward, beginning to draw their weapons.

"Halt!" he cried over the distance, raising his hand swiftly. "If you wish to approach, you may, but you must stay your weapons."

Ready to charge forward with a blistering anger, Raphael and Casey had been stopped by Donatello's bo staff pressing against their chests. The group had exchanged glances then, understandably uncomfortable with the situation. Leo had been the first to reluctantly play according to the Shredder's rules, sheathing his katanas across his shell.

After walking nearly one hundred and fifty yards through the long building, the Turtles and their friends had stopped just inches out of their enemy's reach. Seeing that Splinter was unconscious, Leo inhaled briskly and demanded to know what the Shredder was up to.

At this the disturbed villain began snickering, something the Turtles had never expected to hear from such an austere person.

"Turtles," he repeated in a quiet growl, "I have grown weary of our rivalry. I have come back to New York with only one goal and after negotiating a re-alliance with the Foot…" the frighteningly clam man paused to remove his helmet and flash a sinister smile, "I am about to achieve that goal."

"And what goal might that be?" April had asked angrily, earning a wary glance from Donnie and Leo, and a heavy-lidded stare from the detestable man before them.

"Miss O'Neil," he breathed her name impatiently, "So glad you could join us."

Raphael remembered he and Casey had snarled in unison.

Straightening his shoulders and peering down at the Turtles one by one, the Shredder had clasped his arms behind his back after a sudden snap of his fingers. From the four wide doors on each long side of the building, and the large one at the opposite end that the group had entered through, poured hundreds of Foot ninja. They quickly formed a mosh pit around the Turtles, the throng of black clad figures pressed so tightly together that pushing through them to the now locked doors would have been nearly impossible. The Shredder was using them as a fence, demonstrating that the Foot really were lemmings desperate enough to take back the leader that had already run so many of their kind off a proverbial cliff.

Satisfied that the trap was complete, the Shredder had cleared his throat, drawing the Turtles' attention back to him.

"As I said, I am weary of the battle we wage time and again. I have decided to put an end to it for good." Taking the short step between himself and Splinter, the madman had rest his hand on the corner of the crate with a grin.

"Do you remember our first encounter, Turtles?"

They had all remembered, but Donatello was the first to make the connection. "No…" he had said softly, panic showing in his eyes.

"Yes," the Shredder had relished the fear exuding from the Turtle with the purple mask. "This time," he sneered, pushing the side of the crate away from its frame, "This time, we truly end our war."

The wooden wall fell with a loud 'crack!' as it hit the floor, revealing the nature of the crate not as a simple perch to display their Sensei, but as a harbinger of death, for inside was stack upon stack of explosives.

They had not noticed before, but now the Turtles saw that the rope around Splinter had been run through holes in the top of the crate and wound all throughout the enormous bomb. April had noticed and informed the others that there was no timing device, which meant that the Shredder had a remote detonator. Speaking for the first time since they had arrived at the facility, Michelangelo had whispered a hushed, fearful, simple, "Dude."

The Turtles snapped their attention back to the Shredder as he let a terrible laugh wrench from his twisted mouth.

"You are partly correct, Miss O'Neil. I do indeed have a detonator, but nothing that will work from a distance. As I told you, I am putting an end to our fight…" they knew what was coming as he reached into his cloak and pulled out a grenade, the Turtles minds flashing memories of their first meeting with the Shredder that had started their long feud.

"Once and for all."

He pulled the pin.

He threw the grenade into the crate.

Grenades, typically taking 4 to 8 seconds to detonate depending on the type, do not allow much time for thought before the instinct to flee kicks in.

Casey had screamed an unnecessary "Run!" as he grabbed April's arm and tried to squeeze through the wall of ninja. Mikey and Raph had leapt into the air, putting their martial arts skills to good use and running across the bobbing heads of the Foot.

They had thought that Donnie and Leo were doing the same.

The only thing they could hear in the last brief moment before the explosion was the Shredder howling with mad laughter.

xxxxxxx

"It's theirs," Mikey rasped.

Raphael understood, and looked at his youngest brother. His only brother, now. Following Mikey's gaze toward the direction they had ran from, he didn't notice that his vision was fully back as his eyes wandered over the devastation radiating outward from a hole in the concrete floor and the crater of dirt it framed.

Raphael wondered where his family was among the ruins. He vomited violently onto the rubble beside him.

April and Casey couldn't have made it very far into the thickly gathered idiot ninja. He cursed to himself for not immediately taking into account their less developed martial arts skills and grabbing the two human members of his family and rescuing them.

He could only guess that Donnie and Leo had foolishly tried to free Master Splinter, knowing they didn't have time but trying anyway, the heroic bit and love for their father figure in them overwhelming their fear and common sense.

Raphael felt ashamed for not doing the same.

Mikey just stared. Raphael feared that he had suffered some sort of head trauma, or was in shock and might become catatonic.

Catatonic. Donnie had taught him that word. Donnie would know how to help Mikey. Leo and Master Splinter would know how to help everyone. Casey and April would lend a priceless hand. They could all help Raphael figure out what to do.

He suppressed a guttural moan and wept silently for the briefest of moments. He had to be strong for Mikey.

He knew his brother must have looked for their family and found nothing, or worse, something. He would later be told through agonized sobs that Mikey had awoken while the dust was still settling and found Raph next to him, unconscious but alive, and had crawled and then stumbled through the rubble searching and calling for everyone else, screaming their names until his throat was raw. Only when he began finding charred bits of shell and clothing and weapons and flesh had he stopped his search and sat, staring.

Raphael's left arm felt broken and he could see that a sizeable fragment from the upper right of Mikey's shell was gone.

Raphael shifted through chunks of seared cement and indeterminable shrapnel, and wrapped his right arm around his brother. They sat there silently, listening to sirens in the distance growing louder as fire, ambulance and police services responded to the blast heard across the city. They knew there was no time to search for and gather the remains of their loved ones.

Mikey looked up at Raphael and whispered through choking tears, "Raph… we- we're all that's left." He gulped in a shallow breath and his face contorted as he cried painfully. "Why didn't we die too?" he sobbed, and Raphael's heart broke for his brother, for his family.

"I don't know, Mikey. Oh, god, I just don't know…" Raphael hung his head and pressed it into the shoulder of his only remaining family, his resolve crumbling under the weight of his grief.

As the sirens grew louder still, Mikey suddenly stood, holding out his hand. Raphael took it and Mikey helped him up, firmly grasping his hand in a grip that told Raphael he wouldn't be letting go for a while. Eyeing the younger Turtle, he felt proud when Mikey turned to him, stone-faced, with a determined look in his eyes.

"Our war with the Shredder might be over, but we'll never stop fighting, right? For them," he let his gaze linger over the ruins, new tears welling and streaming down his face to land on the cracked floor beneath him.

When Mikey looked back at him for some sort of confirmation or reassurance or both, Raphael nodded and said in a ragged but equally determined voice, "For them."

The brothers helped each other walk unsteadily towards a hard future. Wanting to believe they could do the memories of their family proud, wanting to convince each other that they would, they both squeezed the others hand.

They knew they would survive.

They just didn't know how.

xxx