Author Notes: Well here it is. Because you asked for it - the sequel to 'It Had To Be Blue'! And yes, if ya haven't read that, you'll have to check it out before ya get to this fic because otherwise it won't make sense.

To all those who have read 'Blue', for this fic I was forced to give the protagonist both a name and a gender. I considered a name and no gender but in the end, I knew I had to commit. At one point I was considering writing two stories at the same time, one as male and one as female, but gave the idea up. I have two chapter fics ongoing and a few one-shot bunnies boiling and I only have so much time!

I owe the fact that this sequel is up at all, let alone so soon, to Olafur. I had zero ideas for what might happen to the protagonist and it was his ideas that sparked the theme for this fic and his patience with my obvious plot holes and his suggestions for improvements that make it workable. He also beta'd this chapter. Thanks dude!

You can find further examples of Olafur's outstanding fanfictions by clicking onto my favourites list. Trust me, if ya like 'Blue' and 'In Too Deep', you will love 'Redemption'. It's a seriously great fic!

As ever, my thanks to everyone who reviewed 'Blue' and to those who reviewed my last one-shot 'Only Words'. And an extra-special thanks to the person who nominated my fic 'Alone' as best one-shot of the year! I'm still choked about that!

I have only seen a few episodes of season 3 (thanks for that Jetix!) and because of this, have chosen that what happens in series 2 is what stands for this fic. In other words, although I have an idea of what's gone on in series 3 and 4, I don't feel that I know them well enough to base a fic on those happenings.

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In Too Deep

The empty beer can flew across the room and landed straight in the trash. Raph smirked. "Three points!"

"Lucky," grumbled Leo, whose own can had rebounded out when he had tried the same trick moments before, thanks mostly to my habit of not empying the trash until it was physically impossible to hammer anything else in there.

I laughed at them and snagged another beer from the mini cooler I kept in the living room for just these occasions. I'd been back in New York almost a whole month and since looking up the Turtles who'd saved my life when I was a member of the Purple Dragons - twice - we'd struck up something of a friendship. They'd been over to my new apartment a few times for a few beers, usually after they'd been out breaking up the gangfights and robberies that plagued the city. I'd expected that when I found them the first time and I gave my thanks for the oppertunity to start a new life, we'd catch up for a while and then I'd probably never see them again. Instead, we had fallen into something of a routine; they would turn up on my fire escape once or twice a week and stay for a couple of hours, maybe we'd watch a film or a game. One time Casey Jones had come along too, but he had felt safe enough using the main door. Although the safety had ended there. As soon as he picked up a beer, I made sure he stayed away from my TV. That guy is lethal where electronics are concerned.

The topic of conversation was usually what we had been up to in the last few years, while I had been away from New York. They would tell me about the fights they had been in or people they had tangled with and I would in turn think back to some of the more amusing moments I had on the road or in Chicago. In spite of the easy way we could discuss that kinda thing, or shout at the TV, there were plenty of secrets between us. I had no idea where they lived, if they had any other family save the four of them, anything much about any of them save for what I observed by watching and listening to them. Sometimes I wondered if they were dropping in for the sole reason of keeping an eye on me and making sure I wasn't about to fall back into my old gang habits. They needn't have worried.

I had a few little secrets of my own.

Between swigs, I kept the beer resting on my arm, where there was a purple-black bruise up near my elbow. Cold is the best thing to rid oneself of bruises quickly. My shirt hid the mark from the two turtles currently making themselves at home on my couch, which was good. There might have been questions I couldn't answer. I'd got the bruise the night before, in a fight. Two guys fresh out of a bar had pulled a woman into an alley and one of them had been rooting through her bag while the other pinned her to a wall and spouted casual threats into her face.

They never saw me coming. I got the guy with the lady's bag on the back of his head with the chain I keep wrapped around my waist for just such late-night excursions as these. He grunted, dropped the bag and spilled the contents all over the alley, falling to his knees and leaning on his hands. I kicked him in the ribs and he fell onto his side, still conscious but no longer a threat to anyone. by this time, we had attracted the attention of his friend, who shoved the woman onto her butt and advanced on me. I unwound the chain from my hand and held it between two fists, waiting for him to make a mistake. He made a dive for me and I sidestepped, letting him stumble past me and elbowing him in the back of the neck. He was tougher than his friend and didn't fall, regaining his footing and aiming a punch that I blocked with my arm, hence the evil bruising the following night. I released one end of the chain and swung it low, catching him around the leg and yanking. He was too heavy for me to pull right off his feet, so, with a mental shrug, I kicked him in the balls. That got him down all right, sinking to his knees and cradling his wounded sack. I slammed my elbow down on his head as hard as I could and he passed right out.

I went over to check on the woman, giving the bag-rifler another kick to the ribs as he tried to get up. She had scrambled to her feet and gone after her bag, trying to retrieve loose change and make-up from the floor of the alley. When she heard my approach she gave up and backed away, almost falling onto her butt once more. I rolled my eyes. She was drunk. I should have guessed. She had made herself an easy target.

"Piece of advice, lady?" I glared at her. "Next time, get a cab home."

Nodding like a dog in the rear window of a car, she backed out of the alley without taking her eyes from me, turning to hurry as best she could on the ludicrous heels as soon as I was out of her sight. I could hear her tapping away and rolled my eyes again. Women and their stupid shoes. No wonder she hadn't been able to outrun them, not on however many cocktails and four inch heels.

The two guys I had run into didn't seem to be members of any gang, no street tattoos, none of the typical gang uniforms. I figured they were just oppertunists who has seen the woman rolling home alone and, fuelled on plenty of beer themselves, thought she was easy money. Hadn't figured on me being out on a Dragon hunt and noticing them.

"Beer me."

"Huh?" I glanced up at Raph, who was crumpling up his fourth empty can. Leo was on his second, I had just finished my third. I reached into the cooler, snagged another beer and threw it toward him. He caught it one handed.

"Show off," I said. "Hope it foams up in your face."

In response, he popped open the can with no foam. I flipped him the bird with a grin. Way back when I was in the Dragons, I thought he was the biggest asshole who walked the earth. When I got back to New York, I learned that yeah, he was an asshole, but he was a lot of other things too and the good usually outweighed the bad, if you got on his good side of course.

"You want one Blue?" I still tend to call Leo Blue, although I've just about managed to stop doing that to the others. It's kinda hard to think of a person by one name for so long and get used to calling them by another. I slip up sometimes, use Red or Purple or Orange when I address his brothers, but its Leo who most often gets the nickname I gave him before I learned what his real name was. And it's Leo who seems to mind his nickname the least, only occasionally pulling me up about it.

"Yeah, please." He caught the beer I lobbed in his direction carefully and with less flash than Raph. "Are you OK? You kinda blanked on us there for a moment."

"Uh, yeah, fine," I said, trying to think of an excuse. "I was just, uh, trying to work out if the liqueor store would still be open. I think we're running low."

"We brought some more around with us," pointed out Leo. "It's just not in the cooler, it's in the fridge."

"Guess I forgot," I said lamely.

Leo's shell-cell chose that moment to ring. Saved by the bell I thought in relief. There was no way I wanted the Turtles to find out what I'd been doing the nights I hadn't been here. I knew already they wouldn't approve. Hell, they didn't think I could take care of myself back when I was a Dragon and now they seemed to be set on the idea of me leading a normal life, away from the darker side of the New York streets, pointing out often how lucky Casey had been in his life not to get more seriously injured than he had been, how much April worried about him and all the reasons why they had been unwise to encourage him back then.

Leo flipped open the cell. "Hello? Oh, hey Mikey. No, we're at Sam's apartment. I dunno, hang on." Leo covered the mouthpiece of his shell-cell with one hand. "You mind if Mikey and Donnie come over?"

"Nah, as long as there's enough beer to see us through."

"It's OK Mikey, we'll see you in five." Leo pu tthe shell-cell away. "You sure you don't mind?"

"Nah." I grabbed myself another beer. "Keeps me occupied of a night."

"Yeah," said Raph, giving me a look over the top of his beer can. "What do you do when we don't come over?"

"Uh. . . " I tried to buy for time by taking a huge swig of beer. "Just watch TV or sometimes I go out with the guys from the garage."

"Oh." Raph gave me a smirk. "Because we dropped by here yesterday and no one was home."

"Yeah. . . " I tried to look innocent. "The guys asked me out for a few beers and I got home pretty late."

A blatant lie. I had been out on the prowl for Purple Dragons and found the two thugs beating up the girl instead. Still, I wasn't gonna tell the Turtles where I had been the previous night. I had to think of something.

Five minutes or so later, I heard the window opening and in jumped Donnie and Mikey. Mikey grinned and threw a packet of peanuts at me. I had no idea why, but what the hell.

"Uh, thanks?"

"You're welcome!" Mikey helped himself to the contents of the cooler. "Whacha been doing? Anything interesting?"

"Nah, same old shit." Work, home, beating up Purple Dragons, hanging out with four big green talking turtles - pretty much the same as ever.

"What, nothing exciting?"

"Nope." I gave him a sideways look. It was odd that he didn't let the conversation just die. Did they suspect I was going out at night and beating up Dragons?

We hung out for a while and when they left, I was a bag of nerves. I knew they couldn't stop me if I wanted to go out and beat up thugs, but I knew they would think it their duty to try. Best to just avoid the situation.

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I was in luck.

The garage where I work opens late on a Sunday, so I managed to sleep off the beers I drank with the Turtles the night before, and closes early so I could escape quickly. I went home, ate, napped on the couch for an hour or so and then, when it got dark, I went out. I wore dark clothes and wrapped the chain around my waist. If anyone stopped me, it might just be some kind of fashion statement rather than a potentially dangerous weapon.

For an hour or so I wandered Dragon turf but saw nothing more than a few kids hanging around. I was young when I fell in with the Dragons but this was ridiculous. They recruited the kids straight out of kindergarten, or so it seemed sometimes. Kids that young should be home at that time of night, not smoking outside seedy buildings with gang members. I know, I know. I was exactly the same. But I had to learn the hard way that the Dragons are not family. Hun's in charge and he thinks about himself and no one else, using the kids who are dumb enough to believe his line of bullshit about family and honour and trust.

I was beginning to think that I wasn't going to see any action at all that night. Irritably, I leant against a wall and lit a cigarette, blowing out smoke rings.I hate when nothing happens. I'd been at the vigilante game for about three weeks and was beginning to learn that you don't just walk out the door and find thugs committing crimes. Sometimes you wait for hours and not a thing. Other times there seems to be more activity than one person can cope with.

Resigning myself to a quiet night, I relaxed a bit and looked up at the night sky. I love New York. I had to leave but I'm so glad to be back, the one place in the world I truly think of as home. . .

A yell made me choke on a lungful of smoke and drop the cigarette in a hurry, already heading in that direction, pulling the chain from around my waist ready. I know what trouble sounds like, believe me.

I ran, following the faint sounds of a scuffle to an alley a couple of blocks away. When I got there, I skidded to a stop, hardly able to believe what I was seeing. Did I think this was gonna be a quiet night? Boy, was I ever wrong!

The alley was between two apartment buildings, the end blocked off by a high wall. There were Purple Dragons everywhere, some kind of skirmish in progress. And in the thick of things, I could see the massive bulk of solid muscle that could only be Hun.

Tonight is my lucky night.

There were so many of them, I couldn't see who they were fighting at first. When I laid eyes on him, he was just a relatively muscular guy with short dark hair and shades on, wearing a long trenchcoat. But he could fight like a demon. The only other guys I've ever seen who can fight like that are the Turtles. He was carrying what looked like a double light saber and for a moment I wondered how he managed to fight so well with a kids toy. He was a good fighter sure, but he was heavily outnumbered and there was no way for him to escape. Someone needed to even the odds.

I swung the chain around my head and leapt in, taking out a Dragon before he could even turn and see me. A second fell victim to a punch to the face. Another came at me with a pipe - I had their attention by that point - and I ducked out of the way, kicking him in the back of the knee to take him down and him down and slamming the back of his head with one chain-wrapped fist.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the guy in the trenchcoat give me a curious look as he knocked another Dragon flying, but I didn't really have the time for introductions right then.A swarm of Dragons broke off their attack on him and came after me. Too many of them for anything fancy, I swung the chain around, kicked and punched, took a couple of hits to my arm and ribs. But I was the better fighter and I'm not scared of playing dirty. Good thing too. I was heavily outnumbered and the Dragons were after blood. This wasn't the gang of kids that the Dragons recruit so many of. These were some of their best and I wondered what the guy had done to piss them off so badly.

The last Dragon after me fell, falling victim to the swing of my chain, a blow that had all the power I could muster behind it. He'd managed to smack me a good one with a length of wood and I wasn't pleased. No time to take stock of injuries though. The guy was clearly worn down by the battle and Hun was advancing on him. I don't think he even noticed, so intent was he on the Dragon he was currently doing battle with. With a yell of rage, I leapt on Hun's back and tightened the chain around his throat. Hun staggered backward, choking. I tightened the chain, pulling backward with all my strength and still he didn't go down. What the hell would it take to put this guy out?

I got my answer. The guy in the trenchcoat dispatched the Dragon, turned and saw Hun and attacked. Moving so fast he was almost a blur, he punched Hun in the face several times before giving him a spinning kick to the gut. I leapt aside as Hun fell, crashing heavily to the ground and not getting up again.

Man, I was impressed!

The remaining Dragons, the few that were still standing, weren't hanging around any longer. I turned and held my chain up in a threatening manner and they all turned tail and fled. I grinned. This is why I love being a vigilante. The adrenaline rush when you kick bad-guy ass is intense. Oh, and revenge of course. Had to get revenge for what was done to me. I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel great to beat the shit outta Hun. OK, so the trenchcoat guy was the one who did it, but I helped.

I turned to trenchcoat and looked him over. "You OK dude?"

"I am fine." He pressed a button on the light saber thingie and it stopped glowing. He shoved it into his belt, turned to face me and I blinked in total surprise when he made a half bow. "Thank you for your help," I noticed that even though the battle was over and the dude was all polite and everything, his body was all tense, ready in case I would try anything.

"No problem." I glanced down at Hun and kicked him in the ribs. He groaned but didn't get up. I didn't think that was going to last though. "Come on, we better get out of here. Wow, those Dragons were really going after you. What did you to to piss them off? Who are you? You can really fight, ya know that?"

He looked a bit taken aback by the questions - I can be talkative at times - but followed me out of the alley. "I am simply - a guardian."

"Guardian, huh? Who ya guarding?"

"My masters are, shall we say, no longer in the city. I remained behind to watch over their ancient enemy and ensure he does not attempt any further attacks on them. The Purple Dragons are in his employ."

"Ya mean, they're taking on assassination contracts now?"

"Not as such."

I was confused, but that's nothing new for me. He noticed my puzzlement and his stern features adjusted temporarily into an amused expression. "Just know, you have made an ally today. I thank you again."

"No worries." I glanced back toward the alley in case Hun had decided to get up and chase after us. "So, what do you think. . ."

He was gone.

I looked around, but there was no sign of him. I even looked up, like maybe he grew wings and flew away, but nope. I hadn't looked away for more than two sseconds and he had vanished.

I sighed, running my hand through my hair.

"Goddamn ninjas!"

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Hun stormed around Dragon headquarters, barely able to believe that he'd been laid out. The damn job should have been an easy one, take down the Guardian and turn him over to the Master. the number of Dragons in the fight should have been enough to determine their advantage, but no, some goddamn vigilante had to stick his nose where it wasn't wanted and blow the whole thing for them.

The kid had looked so familiar. . .

It wasn't Jones, that much he knew for sure. Jones was older, taller, wore that stupid hockey mask. The kid had been maybe 20 or so, longish dark hair tied back, wore nothing to hide his face. And the chain, that was more of a gang weapon than something a vigilante would carry.Maybe the kid belonged to a rival gang and hadn't been helping out the Guardian but hurting the Dragons instead.

The disrespect was intolerable.

They should have had the Guardian that night, been able to hand him to the Master and get all his knowledge about the Utroms. The Guardians were tough, but he couldn't have held out against all those Dragons for much longer and certainly couldn't have stayed silent long when Hun started his 'interrogation'. And all it took was one dumb punk vigilante with a grudge against the Dragons to blow the plan all the way to hell.

Why did that kid look so familiar?

Hun knew he should go to the Foot headquarters, but needed time to brace himself against his Master's anger. What he would really like was to work off his own anger by fighting, but any Dragon foolish enough to tangle with him would get killed and that was the last thing he needed. He settled instead for yelling at the Dragons who had screwed up for half an hour before giving in to the inevitable and going to leave the warehouse where they currently met.

Dragon Face was just entering as Hun was leaving. Obviously, the second-in-command had heard of the failure because when he saw Hun, he stopped dead and gave a fake grin. Dragon Face was afraid of Hun, sure, but he would love to see him fail. He had been wanting control of the Dragons for a long time and he would never get it with Hun in the way.

Hun glared at Dragon Face, willing him to make some kind of comment about the failure and give him an excuse to beat the stupid tattoo right off his face.But Dragon Face was only tough as long as he didn't have to fight anyone tougher than himself, nor did he have a death wish. Rather than engage Hun in conversation, he raised a hand in a half-greeting, the scars from the exploding shell-cell some five years or so back still standing out against the skin. . .

Exploding shell-cell.

Hun suddenly realised why the kid had looked so familiar. Mentally he took about five years from the vigilantes age and tried to imagine him with different hair. Oh yeah. That was him.

The kid had been a Dragon, one of the runaways they recruited from the streets on occasion. Tough little SOB too. Had all of them fooled. The kid had taken a bullet and been hauled back to the parents he had run from, yet had still gone back to the Dragons. Hun had seen potential in him, thinking that in a few years, he would be fit to hold an important place within the Dragons.

Then something had happened, Dragon Face thinking he was going to run out on them. They had realised that all along, the kid had been working for the Turtle-freaks that had caused them so much trouble. The kid was under a death penalty but somehow the freaks had discovered the danger in time to save his ass. There had been no sign of him in the following weeks and they had all assumed he had skipped town.

What he had been up to in the past few years was unimportant. What mattered was that the kid seemed to be an ally of the Guardian they had been seeking as well as the freaks. If they found the kid, he could lead them to the Guardian and in turn, all the information about the Utroms he possessed. Like a way to get to their home world. The Master could hold a grudge for a long time and the Utroms were his ancient enemies. And if the kid knew how to find the freaks, well, so much the better.

"Dragon Face."

"Huh?"

"The kid, the one who was working for the Turtles. The one who escaped. What was his name?"

Dragon Face scowled and looked down at his hand in rememberance. "Sam."

"Last name?"

"Dunno. Never said."

"Sam." Hun thought about it. He wouldn't be able to chase him through the name, but vigilantes were nothing if not predictable. The kid would be around, trying to rid the streets of the Dragons. Then they could strike.

Hun began to chuckle, malice in the noise. Sam huh? Little Sammy, back in New York City and looking for trouble.

He'd give him trouble. If he had allied himself with the guardian, he was gonna get all the trouble he could handle.

And then some.