SHI: RAPTURE

His daughter a short distance behind, a line of twelve armor-clad and hat-wearing Foot following her, the Shredder made his way to the dais overlooking the crowd of fully-suited Foot. In the darkness of the abandoned steel mill, the assembled Foot stretched out as far as the eye could see. On the catwalk over the dais, the figures of the kunoichi kept a vigil over the congregation below them.

"Since my resurgence we have come a long way," the Shredder spoke, his voice normal but still booming with resonance in the spacious factory. "Our Foot Clan is once again what it was, and my Elite Foot have been reborn in impressive time. This is due in no small part to my dear daughter, Pimiko, who now stands at my side. The completion of our destiny is once again within our sight."

Acknowledging her father’s subtle nod with a slight bow, she spoke to the congregation, "This is why my father called this meeting. Our time has been bided. Our plans have been put into effect. Tonight we stand on the eve of our destiny’s end." What she next said, she said with sheer repugnance, "Tonight we destroy the Turtles."

Beneath the swirling mass of dark, foreboding clouds that obscured the evening’s full moon, beyond the tombstone-ridden hillsides of Westwood Cemetery, wisps of hot air dissipated into the frosty night air from behind a piller at a mausoleum’s front.

Breathing.

A mug of foamy, home-brewed beer in one hand, Donatello used the shadows to hide his watch post position. Somehow he always wound up on the night watch. A cyborg, his symbiote-less A.I. could remain at full awareness even as he slept, a fact his brothers knew well. In the year the Turtles had spent holed up in the mausoleum, aside from an early scuffle with the kunoichi of Warlord Komodo, there had been not the slightest sign of enemy encrouchment. As Donatello leaned against the stone wall, sipping the rest of his beer, he did not realize his failing until it was too late.

Don dropped his mug to the grass, looking frantically up and around him as his external sensors came to life with proximity warnings. As his gaze came to settle on the six broad figures standing before him, he raised his right arm, already beginning to morph it into an arm cannon.

"The Foot…" he murmured. "But…Elite Foot. How can this…" He took notice of a seventh figure, this one easily distinguishable from the others from its familiarity.

In the past two years Don had faced death and lived, confronting and overcoming all of his fears and more against the insurmountable tragedies he endured. Yet as he recognized the figure, fear gripped him like a vice. "You… Oh, God… You!"

Upon the raising of the seventh figure’s arm, the first six fired their handheld weapons. Even as Donatello began firing his arm cannon, six taser lines buried themselves into his chest plating. He could not even speak as the paralyzing electrical current jolted through his body.

The Turtles had scarcely enough time to draw their weapons before the invasion was in full swing. Michaelangelo shook off the bag of chips and bowl of salsa that had been in his lap, jumping atop the couch as he went for his nunchuks; Raphael, asleep face-down in front of the television set a moment ago, already had his sai drawn and ready; Leonardo ended his game of solitaire and unsheathed both katana swords.

"Shit, it’s the Foot!" Mike yelped, preparing to deal with the first wave of Foot Soldiers.

Leo crossed his swords, focusing his attention on the lead Soldier. "We have a truce!"

Pausing only to adjust his eyepatch, Raphael leapt into the fray, yelling, "Not anymore!" Swatting away a lunge by a butterfly sword-bearing Foot Soldier before one of the other Foot broke his fall, Raph swept one sai across his chest, then jammed the second in his throat.

While his brothers tended to the rest, each taking on at least three at a time, Leo dueled the apparent leader. A swift swipe forced Leo to parry and delay his offense. "You’re Shredder Elite," Leo spoke in the hat-bearing Foot’s face, "I thought we killed all of you."

The Elite made a surprise swing with his halberd axe that caught Leo in the front of his shell. "For the Shredder!" the Foot exclaimed.

"We made a truce, damn you! With Karai—years ago!"

"Foolish one, Karai is dead, slain by our true master."

The Shredder Elite were honor bound to answer only to one man. A man twice dead. Leo knew this, making him edgy to ponder the words of the Elite. He had, however, no time for queries. With a sudden thrust of one katana, the Foot was impaled through the heart.

By the time Leo had dealt with the Elite, his brothers had slain or knocked out the rest of the invading Foot.

"That’s…all…?" Raphael asked. Whether the blood he was covered and caked with was his fallen enemies’ or his own, Leo could not tell.

As if in answer to his question, pairs of more Shredder Elite stormed in, followed by…

"Kunoichi!" Leo gasped at the group of female ninja that followed the Elite’s entrance.

"A Foot Clan-kunoichi alliance? What the fuck?" Despite his bewilderment, Raphael was only too happy to face this new challenge.

Something troubling came across Mike. He scolded himself for not thinking of it sooner. "Anybody seen Donny?" He asked the question even as he shattered the jaw of an approaching kunoichi with a sharp snap of his nunchuks.

As the fighting dragged on, the Turtles periodically shouted the name of their missing brother to no avail.

"Enough!" an authoritative voice boomed from somewhere outside. With calm reservation, a tall, bladed armor-clad figure strode into the Turtles’ mausoleum den. The remaining kunoichi and Elite broke off their engagements and started backing away into the shadows at the voice. The Turtles, too mesmerized by the hauntingly familiar figure only feet away from them now, did not make a move to stop them.

Leo was the only one who dared speak. "Shredder…Oroku Saki," he spoke, his voice almost a whisper. "You cannot be here…not alive. But somehow I knew."

The Shredder avoided the comment as he surveyed the roomful of dead Foot and kunoichi. "Your cyborg brother is safe for the time being. To challenge him in honorable combat would give me no satisfaction."

A look into the hate-filled eyes of the Shredder was enough to sate Raphael’s doubt. He asked only "How many times do we have to kill you?"

Shredder’s eyes narrowed to slits. "One more." Raising both gauntleted fists, two more figures—these also familiar—appeared at Saki’s sides. "But first, gaijin, you must deal with my children."

As they came into the light, all three of the Turtles recognized the grotesque duo at once.

"Those worm creatures we fought a couple years ago!" Mike recalled. He then added, quietly, "When Leo took down Saki."

Raph snarled at the runt of the duo, "What’ve you got, short shit? C’mon!" The nimble creature deftly avoided a swing and its follow-up from Raphael’s sai, cartwheeling backward out harm’s way.

Mike and Leo rushed the lanky one. A bat across the creature’s helmet by Mike’s nunchuks was answered by a swipe from its tree trunk-thick insectoid arm. Not given enough time to react, Mike took the powerful blow across his brow, knocking him out cold and sending him hurtling into the kitchen.

Leo brought his katana down, slicing off the creature’s arm at the collar. Maggot-like worms poured from both the socket and the severed limb. Raphael, his duel with the runt concluded by a shuriken to its skull, joined his brother. As Leo hacked the growling creature’s other arm off, Raphael leapt onto its back, stabbing his way up its spine until he was sitting on its shoulders. Then, while it bucked violently to throw him off, Raphael sandwiched both sai into the creature’s temples.

Yanking his sai from the fallen behemoth’s head, Raph peered up to find himself facing the Shredder, mocking him, inviting him to come outside to the cemetery. "Your turn, huh?"

"Raphael, the one who dared impersonate me—defile my name!" the Shredder seethed. "Come, fledgling, let us see if your arrogance carries any weight!"

Leonardo could sense the anger rising in his brother. With a nod of bitter approval, he ceded the duel to Raphael.

"Saki…" Raphael didn’t question the Shredder as he started for the open doorway—to him, the details of his resurrection were irrelevant. With a rage that made even Shredder wary, he bellowed "You’re mine!"

In a blind rage, Raphael came at the Shredder, all of his anger, all of his frustration boiling into an attack of concentrated fury. His sai becoming the instrument of his fury, he took rapid swings at the Shredder, putting the ninja master on full alert to parry the blows with his forearms. A swing attempted to the Shredder’s gut was deflected by a shrug of Saki’s arm. The blades of his forearm armor wedged the tip of his sai, snapping it as Shredder jerked his arm away.

"Foolish Turtle," boomed the Shredder, "your time has elapsed!" He gave a solid kick to Raphael’s midsection and a fierce swipe that tore across his face. Raph, momentarily dazed by the sudden blood loss, could not bring up his reflexes to deflect the roundhouse across his cheek that threw him to the ground.

Looming over the fallen Turtle, Shredder eagerly raised the wrist blades of his right gauntlet to Raphael’s neck.

"No!"

The firm cry stopped Shredder short of delivering the killing blow to Raphael. "Ah," he said, turning to face his old quarry, "Leonardo."

"Tell me." Leonardo advanced on him, forcing himself to be undaunted by the ominous figure so embroidered in his past. "Why do you not stay dead?"

Moving as if he had been anticipation of this one moment, Shredder unattached and threw aside his helmet, the sharp features of his face revealing themselves under the pale light of the mausoleum. "In our last meeting I told you I cannot die." Anger and impatience barely held at bay was evident in his eyes. "But I will give you one last chance, one final battle. It is just the two of us—your brothers are not here to help you."

"I didn’t need them last time to kill you, I don’t need them now."

Shredder could only smile at his opponent’s guile as he reached down to pick up two of his fallen Elites’ swords. "One way or another," he spoke, brandishing his new weapons, "it ends now."

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