Disclaimer: Peter Laird and Co. own TMNT, I do not. Please don't sue broke old me...
Chapter 3 of Sunset of Death. Rated PG-13 for the usual reasons, including bad words in more than one language. Yes, I guess I got the setting for this one because it is currently storming outside as I write the opening scenes...And as for what Leo had endured when that anger burned through him so fiercely such a short time before, well, I have little doubt as there was more to his fury than he'd ever told anybody...even the AO.
And as a reminder...remember in this timeline Saki's still around. This story works around a handful of differences...
Sunset of Death
By ZeoViolet
Later that night
The whole house was plunged into darkness.
Violet, who was just finishing the hottest shower she could stand-the presence of those men had left her feeling distinctly fouled-gave a surprised yelp and slipped while in the shower stall.
She cursed softly in Japanese as she grabbed hold of the rail inside the shower stall just in time. This was not how she wanted to break her neck...
Or to end such a bad day for that matter.
Making herself steady her breathing, she got her bearings and stepped carefully from the stall, onto the carpeted bathroom floor. She was not intimately familiar with this bathroom, seldom as she'd lived in this house over the years, and it took a bit of groping before her fingers hit her bathrobe.
She did not bother to search for a towel, but put the robe on over her damp body and soppy-wet, behind-length curls.
She padded out of the bathroom and, lightly touching the walls, felt her way down the halls and into the main living room, where she pulled aside a heavy curtain and peered out at the darkness.
The whole street was dark. But rain was pounding violently on the windowpane.
Must've started while I was in the shower, Violet thought vaguely. Kuso!
There weren't an abundance of candles in the house and in the last move, her father had lost his flashlight.
Her eyes were getting used to the dimness, and with her training it was fairly easy to move about in darkness if one had their bearings. Still, she needed light, so she made her way into the nearby kitchen, where she figured her father would've kept a few candles.
Even though the only place I can remember him saying so for sure was the basement, she thought, exasperated.
Violet suppressed a shudder. She hated that basement and never went down there. There were too many...reminders there, her father had said. Even opening that basement door felt all wrong, as if it was the gateway to some great evil.
She forced the thought from her mind. In an end drawer she found a single candle. It was a start.
There were matches in there as well and she quickly lit one and soon had the candle blazing.
It helped; however the candle was not very large and would not last long. A quick search of the kitchen yeilded no further ones, and after being attacked tonight Violet was not about to go outside again. Despite her shower she still felt somehow sickened, knowing what those two men had wanted to use her body for.
It left the basement.
Violet stared at the door at the other end of the kitchen and sighed. She'd have to venture down there. There seemed to be no other way around this tonight.
I am so not looking forward to this, she thought, irritated, as she went to her bedroom and placed the candle on her dresser and opened the top drawers, mindful of fire risks.
She threw some black clothing on her damp body and roughly ran a brush through her long, drippy blonde ringlets before loosely binding them with a black scrunchie. It didn't matter to Violet how she looked. Growing up as she had, she'd never given vanity much of a thought.
It had only been rarely that her father even remembered she was female. Once in a while, he had simply wanted her to be his daughter. He'd forbidden her to cut her hair on one of those occassions even though she'd argued her hair was in the way, and was why he had wanted her to pierce her ears.
Violet didn't even want to remember those happier thoughts right now. It hurt too much. It made the poison around her heart burn worse.
Her lips tightened as she picked up the candle, already getting low, and headed back into the kitchen...and towards the basement door.
Leonardo listened impassively as Raphael finished telling him over the shell-cell what had occurred.
"So...whaddya think?" Raph asked. "It was the damndest thing I ever saw. She one of Saki's little darlings maybe?"
"It is possible..." Leonardo said slowly. "If the Shredder trained Karai, there might be a couple other females among his underlings if they have talent enough."
"Well, she sure as hell had talent," snapped his brother. "Whoever trained her was damned good, an' it was too obvious she was usin' Foot moves. Those were just a couplea very stupid Purple Dragon grunts not ta have known whom they were dealin' with."
"Think it was Saki himself?" asked Leo. "We have no absolute proof she's a member of the Foot, Raph."
"I dunno about that. We didn't see a huge load of moves, bro. Just enough ta realize she was usin' Foot moves an' that she had talent with 'em. It didn't take a lot ta beat down those two peabrains that attacked her."
"Still, seeing as how her father was murdered by them..." mused Leo. "She has something to do with them. It cannot be anything else, but there's no proof she's a threat to us. We'll just have to keep an eye out if anything strange happens. And not bother with her unless she proves to be such a threat. If she is from the Foot, she's not worth our breath otherwise. She's without honor."
There was just the slightest tightening of his voice, one which vaguely startled Raph as he said goodbye and hung up his shell-cell. He hadn't heard that tone since Leo had gone to see the Ancient One.
The turtle in red stood very silently in the hallway of April's home, thinking hard and reflexively gripping his sais.
There was no way in hell he'd ever let Karai emotionally destroy his brother ever again, at least not before they killed him, Raphael, first.
His thoughts drifted back to her betrayal that day, several months ago, aboard the alien ship in a swirl of red that mirrored his thoughts and emotions.
Leo and Karai's swordfight. Karai crying out that they were leaving, it did not have to be this way...her being flung over the railing and Leo, never without honor, catching her. He had pulled her up...and she'd reached over him and grabbed one of the swords right off his back.
"You are much too kind," she'd sneered as Leo had been thrown backwards...then abruptly kicked back forward when the Utrom-Shredder, in his hideous new suit, had kicked him square in the back of the shell. Karai, whether intentional or not-Raph had been in too much pain to be sure-had been holding the sword just right...
"Leo! Noooo!"
Raphael felt his insides clench with remembered horror and anger.
Later Leo had healed physically, with just his shell scarred, but that last act of betrayal had destroyed more within Leonardo than anybody but Raph, alone, was aware of.
Sure, everyone was more than too aware of the fury that had obliterated Leonardo's calm spirit and sent so much poison coursing through his body nobody could reach him. Leonardo's intense, deep love for his family was so affected by this poison it had twisted itself into something terrible, savage. He drove himself, and his brothers, harder and harder in their training, striving to attain a perfection that did not exist in order to protect each other and keep their family safe.
All that time he'd alternated between terrible bursts of fury, deep abiding anger at himself, and an intense, tearless sadness that read too clearly, I'm not good enough! I wasn't good enough! They all nearly died because I could do nothing!
Although Raph had often grumbled about how Leo was acting, deep down as each day passed his fear for his brother had grown. He didn't want his brother to display a temper that rivaled his own famous one. Not when that temper was driven by something like...this. He had secretly feared Leo's heart had been permanently destroyed. Their Fearless Leader had just become reckless.
In the end, when even Usagi and Master Splinter could not crack that poisonous ice that had enveloped Leonardo, when the strain Leo was forcing himself under was taking it's toll on his body and the weight loss became noticeable-only then had Master Splinter used his last resort and sent Leonardo to the Ancient One.
And for the most part, the Ancient One had done what none of the rest of them could do. He had forced Leonardo to face himself, his own greatest enemy, and leached the the poisonous fury from his heart before it was too late.
It was enough for Leonardo lift the burden from himself and begin to heal, something that would not happen overnight--and was still happening. But the real Leo was back.
However, and this made Raph grit his teeth in suppressed fury, he and he alone was aware of something that not Usagi, Master Splinter, or even the Ancient One himself had ever uncovered.
Raph and Leo were often at odds and at each other's throats, but deep down they were closer to each other than with anybody else in the family.
Leo had never told him his deepest, darkest secret, it had been something Raph had sensed. However, it was only because they were so close that he picked up on this deep forbidden secret that had buried itself beneath all of Leonardo's fury.
And it had to do with Karai, the bitch!
Leonardo hated Karai with a passion now. She'd betrayed, on every count, everything he had hoped she could be.
And that had included, in the most hidden recesses of Leonardo's heart, feelings he should never have felt for her. Ever.
Nobody else had the slightest idea this had happened to Leo. But it had been the deepest reason, and the strongest glue, that had held the poison around his heart in place and why nobody had been able to reach him.
When, after returning from the Ancient One Leonardo, not bothering with the Shredder at all, had gone to face Karai and had told Raph about it later, it was how he'd told it, and something so subtle about the passionate pain in Leo's voice over Karai's betrayals of honor that had first given Raphael the shocking idea it was more than that...and a feeling deep down that it was all too true.
And for once, Raph, usually so head-on about facing such issues, had kept his fat mouth shut. Not for anything in the world would he increase Leonardo's pain. Not even in his worst fits of temper.
Now Raph gripped his sais tightly and twirled them around once before sticking them back in his belt. He had no intention of letting that two-faced, green-eyed bitch daughter of Saki's near Leo ever again if he could help it.
And if this other girl, this other Foot girl-if she was Foot-
Raph snorted to himself. Of course she had to be!
If she was made of the same substance...she was not only without any honor at all, she was worth less than dirt. It'd probably be just like her to twist some unsuspecting guy's heart around to suit her needs, too.
If she was Foot, and he faced her in battle one day, he'd have no problem killing her. The world didn't need another Karai clone.
The candlelight flickered in the darkness, creating large shadows in every corner of the dusty basement Violet found herself in.
Surely her father had kept any extra candles in some easily-accessible corner...
She made her way deep into the depths of the basement and placed the candle on a table, squinting in the dimness, looking for any box marked 'emergency'.
Finally she found it, buried under a stack of albums. She picked everything up, albums included, and deposited them on the dust-covered table. She pushed the albums aside and opened the box, finding an old first-aid kit and, to her relief, some emergency candles, batteries, and another flashlight.
However, these batteries were outdated and probably useless, it had been so many years. She drew out a fresh candle and used the final sputterings from the old candle to light it.
This candle burned brighter, and for a moment Violet paused, looking around her, really looking, for the first time in...well, since she could remember, and truly taking in this creepy basement.
What sort of...secrets could possibly be hidden down here? What reminders? She had a vague notion that perhaps some of her father's old Foot gear was probably down here instead of being burned as they should have been, but she didn't know that for certain.
She absently picked up the top dusty photo album and opened it. Photos, of course, stared back at her.
Grandparents she'd never seen, her father as a boy, more photos from him and his years in Japan, back in the states, early photos of her mother, pictures from their marriage, and Violet as a very young child.
Then the photos started changing as Violet turned the pages.
Her father, pictured with faces she didn't recognize. Perhaps the students he'd been forced to teach?
One huge bhemoth guy in particular made her shiver--blond, with a ponytail, and a purple dragon tattoo about his upper arm!
There was a mercilessness about his features, one that made Violet shiver in disgust. Her father looked most reluctant at being made to pose with most of these people. He had hated so much being forced to serve such evil.
There were a couple other photos, one of a handsome man in particular, asian in appearance, staring at the camera with what looked like a sincere smile--but there was a sinister coldness in his eyes that made her stomach twist. Merciless. Cruel. Dominating.
But who the hell was he?
She'd seen that face before somewhere...
Her memories of the days before her father faked their death and fled were numerous, but spotty. She remembered events but the faces of people were always in shadow, except for her father's face...and one memory that still haunted her nightmares.
It had been this face!
Flash
Violet's memories took her back in time. She'd already started learning how to use sais and she was not even five yet. This man had entered the dojo and smiled at her, patting her head in a friendly way. Even then something behind his eyes, and two enormous steel claws worn on one hand, had made her want to recoil from him, but deeper instinct had made her give a fake smile instead.
Her father had entered the dojo room, and the man had gone over to him. They had spoken for quite awhile and Violet, who went on practicing, did not recall their conversation. But her father had looked deathly afraid.
The man had abruptly turned and walked back over to the young child, Violet.
"Stand before me," he'd commanded gently. But she was terrified and scrambled to obey.
He had reached down and scooped her up, holding her in the arm without those deadly claws.
"Remember you always belong to the Foot Clan!" he had said to her father. "And so does she. You both always will!"
He'd lifted her shirt, exposing her ribcage, and those claws had raised and glittered fiercely...
And she'd felt the warm trickle of her own blood.
Flash
Violet still remembered the stinging, paralyzing pain of those claws marking her. She'd been so stunned she hadn't reacted at all. She'd not screamed, not cried, she had just stared at this man blankly while her white practice uniform had slowly started to stain red.
Now Violet reflexively lifted her own shirt and traced the twin scars. The man had at least taken care to not really injure her, for they were only two inches long and faint at that, but the scars had remained like a brand.
To this day, never again did Violet ever feel it when she was cut or scratched. That was the last time she'd felt any pain when her skin was sliced open. Now, it was simply vague discomfort later, or the feel of herself bleeding that told her she'd hurt herself.
Two days after this had occured, her terrified father had faked their death and fled, unwilling to expose his only child to the horrors around them any longer.
The one clear face she remembered from that terrible past, and it was this one.
A wave of nausea swept over Violet, and she slammed the album shut, cursing her father soundly for not having burned these awful things. She grabbed the candles and fled back upstairs with them, vowing to never again look through such annals of horror, such terrible reminders of the past!