1. Chapter 1 (2/2)

"hey!" there was the sound of something heavy hitting the pavement, and raph could only assume his best friend had taken one of these guys down bare-fisted. "the only reason i take any time is 'cause april likes it, and i know you're all jealous of that."

"i hate to interrupt this little party," raph felt leo back up so he and his big

other were now standing shell to shell, "but one of these guys has got a gun. i saw it under his coat. be on your toes."

raph cursed under his

eath, spinning one of his weapons in a free hand. none of them enjoyed going up against an idiot that was packing. it didn't matter how good you were, a bullet was faster, and a bullet big enough and at a close enough range would still slice through their shells easy.

he and leo sprang apart as some big lug chucked part of the ventilation system at them. how he'd gotten it loose, raph wasn't sure. but if he could do that, he needed to go down fast. a sharp twist changed his direction so he was running towards the guy. "alright, ugly. if you wanna dance, i've got a few moves to show you."

it was probably fortunate the guy just swung a meaty fist at raph's head instead of speaking. if it had made any kind of intelligent noise, the turtle probably would have died of shock. he couldn't help thinking the purple dragon looked a lot like 'the hippo' from one of those kiddie anime shows that mikey enjoyed watching so much—bare-chested, a small tuft of dark

own hair and almost no teeth behind fat lips and the ugliest double chin raph had ever seen. the only addition was a dragon tattoo making its way across his—shudder—man boobs.

raph sprang back in an agile handstand, and heard the roof crack as the guy's fist hit where he'd just been standing. it wouldn't be hard to avoid whatever this guy dished out, he was fat and slow, but neutralizing him would be another game altogether.

once he'd landed, the teenage turtle shot a quick glance over his shoulder. there were three idiots ganging up on leo. they probably thought they'd be enough to take his older

other down. ha! he almost felt bad for their stupidity.

he couldn't hear casey and mikey over the wind that had begun blowing its way through the buildings, but he could see their mouths moving and they were still close enough together to be trading jibes. it was obvious his little

other was guarding casey, which was probably good. don wasn't too far from them, either, sending guys over the roof one after the other. the fall wasn't enough to kill them, but they would seriously reconsider climbing back up.

they were all far enough away not to get in his way, but close enough he could still help 'em when they needed it. good.

another fist was incoming, and raph simply twisted away. he lashed out with one of his sai almost on instinct. they weren't sharpened, but that didn't mean he couldn't cut with them when he put enough force behind it.

meaty, as raph had decided to call him, didn't seem to like the sight of his own blood much. he paled considerably before letting out a roar and charging at him. raph simply dropped, fitting under the giant's legs easily. he sprang onto his hands and donkey-kicked backwards at the first available opportunity. meaty stumbled forward, and then went boneless as his head collided against the edge of something sharp and metal with a very satisfying crack.

"i swear, these guys get dumber every time we fight 'em," raph muttered, spinning a sai in one hand. "hun must be gettin' really desperate."

"raph! look out!"

there wasn't time for him to think more than 'was that donnie?' before something heavy collided with his side, followed by a crack of thunder from the storm clouds looming overhead. man, he must be getting slow if don had time to see a threat before he did! leo was going to be assigning him extra sessions for a week.

raph twisted in midair so he landed in a crouch, ready to face whatever it was that had attacked him. something seemed off though. for as panicked as don had sounded, that hit had been nothin', and there wasn't anyone trying to take him out before he landed. if they were trying to tackle him before, shouldn't they still be trying? either they were even stupider than meaty, or something was off here.

in the almost-darkness, it took raphael a few moments to process what he was seeing. some purple dragon was standing maybe a half dozen yards away, the large gun in his hand still smoking. there weren't any other attackers between the two of them. just a figure slumped on the ground that could only be one person.

raph felt his mouth go dry.

"donnie!" mikey's yell of made raph's heartbeat pick up. mike was seeing it too.

but that wasn't possible. it couldn't be. because that would mean that donnie had been shot, and raph would never allow that to happen. not to his twin

other. he had to have hit his head—maybe he'd been knocked out when he'd been hit earlier, and all of this was some twisted reality. right, that was it. he was really unconscious.

leo yelled something, probably some form of don's name, but it was drowned out as thunder really did crash down this time.

raph couldn't

eathe, all of the sudden. it was like his

ain had just shut down. maybe it had. don was the

ains of their little duo after all. was he going into shock? raph couldn't remember all the symptoms. donnie had taught them to him, when they were kids, but every time he tried to grasp the memory it slipped away, more like a dream then a memory.

while the gunman was engaged with a pair of katana, raph made his way across the roof to his fallen

other. he was probably running, it only made sense, but the distance was closing achingly slowly. he seemed to be moving at the pace of a funeral march instead of the run he knew he had to be doing.

nothing his senses were telling him seemed to be right. because they were all telling him that donnie, his donnie, had just taken a bullet for him and that was impossible. not that don wouldn't do that for him; it just wouldn't happen. raph trained so he could protect his

others, and though he'd never say it out loud, don was the most important one of the three.

because they were them. they didn't literally make up one person, they were still raph and don and nobody else, but when they were kids he'd always thought of himself as 'me-n-donnie'. and if don got hurt he would just be 'me' and that wasn't right at all.

if donnie had gotten hurt, was dying, he'd feel more than numb, he'd have to, because then his soul would be tearing in half, wouldn't it?

his knees did not give out on him as he reached his

other's side, and he knelt down just as silently as he would any other time. his hands were shaking, though, and he couldn't understand why because none of this was actually happening. no way. he was sleeping, unconscious; he had to be because the only way anyone would ever shoot don would be over his dead body. he always had don's back. he was his little

other, and it was raph's job to watch him, it always was, and he hadn't looked away not for one second ever before, and it couldn't be that the one time he decided to blink was the time don needed him most, it just couldn't.

"come on, donnie." it was his voice saying it, his mouth forming the words, but his voice sounded all wrong. someone else had to be speaking, too; someone who was half-dead themselves from the sound of it. "don, get up. open your eyes, come on." his shaking hand seized his

other's shoulder, rolling him onto his shell.

donnie's eyes were open already, but they weren't focused. they were just staring up at the light show that was going on over their heads, although if he even saw that the older turtle wasn't sure. they were dark and distant, not the way don's eyes normally were. normally it was like half of him had gone to wherever it was don's

ain usually resided while half of him stayed in reality. now all of him just…wasn't there.

"raphie, do you ever worry that don's just gonna…disappear one day?"

"what the shell are you talkin' 'bout, leo? it's not like don's a ghost, or somethin'."

his eyes trailed down don's body, and something inside him violently rebelled at what he saw. there was a horrible gaping hole in his

other's plastron, just below where his heart was. no way that would have, in reality, missed something important. if this was real he would have screamed, would have hurt someone, but don wasn't really dying so it was all right.

"not like a ghost. like…like those spots you see when we run under the grates and you happen to look up at the sunshine. there's green dots all over your vision for a while that look like they're really there, but they fade after a while and you realize you were just imagining things the whole time. like that."

there was blood everywhere, too. thick corn-syrup and flour dyed red, movie stuff, that stuck to his hands as he tried to cover up the hole on reflex, to his knee pads as it started to leak its way underneath his

other's body.

the blood was pouring out between his fingers thick and fast. "shell, don, whatcha do that for?" that wasn't funny, but raph laughed anyway. it sounded hollow in his ears, echoing off the ever-approaching thunder.

"i don't follow ya. you sayin' we're all imaginin' don? that's stupid, leo."

"not imagining him. i mean that he wasn't ever really meant to be here in the first place, he was supposed to be somewhere else and ended up with us sort of by accident. and, eventually, someone is going to realize that and try and fix it, and donnie will just…go away."

"i don't know why you'd want to take a bullet for me anyway. i've been a pain in the ass for you lately." raph felt something wet sliding down his face. raindrops? he didn't think it was raining.

don opened his mouth, as if trying to say something. all that came out was a trickle of blood and a wheezy cough. blood bubbled under raph's hands from the pressure.

it wasn't rain, it was tears. that was fine. he could cry. it was just a dream, after all. no one else would laugh at him later, they wouldn't know. "i was just mad, don. not at you, really, and you're supposed to know that. i'm sorry, though, okay?"

there was no answer. just

own eyes staring vacantly at nothing as the chest under raph's hands stopped moving altogether. no more shallow

eathing, just a steady stream of thick sticky blood between his fingers.

someone screamed, and raphael glanced up to see that one of leo's strikes had hit home. the guy crumbled like wet paper, his gun skittering along the rooftop.

raph stared at it. he didn't know what kind it was, but it was large. more than large enough to have bullets that would do some serious damage. damage that even he couldn't have handled, if he'd taken it straight on.

something cold started to steal its way through the barrier he'd firmly put in place. leo had said earlier that someone was packin', and that part hadn't been a dream. the gun, the gun was real…and if the gun was real then someone could have really been trying to shoot him while he was distracted. he'd just taken out one of their largest guys, he'd been an easy target when his shell was turned to the rest of the battle. and wouldn't it be just like donnie to save him, even though he was still angry about earlier? the feeling of icy drops landing on his face, no longer just tears, came with a realization raph could not handle.

he was not dreaming.

reality arrived with the storm, and along with it a wave of red that flooded his vision, staining his eyes with donnie's blood as he released his

other's limp form. his don, his better half, was lying murdered in front of him on the rooftop. and somebody was going to pay. these purple dragons were going to die, one by one, until somebody found a way to

ing him back.