Dagger From the Mirror (ROTTMNT/TMNT 2012 Crossover Fic)

Father and Son

The race through the sewers was a long one.

Both Leonardo and New Raph's bodies ached with exhaustion, and all they could do was keep fighting Foot soldiers as more and more poured in through each manhole they passed. It was a useless fight that they could barely keep up with, and each second was filled with the dreaded knowledge that they could be swallowed whole by the forcefield at any moment.

But they couldn't stop long enough to figure out an alternate plan.

Leonardo jumped up and slashed through two bots with his katanas, slicing their chests in half and leaving the Kraang scrambling to escape. He panted as he spun around, striking another two with his foot and grimacing in pain. There had to be a better way than this.

"Leo," New Raph shouted, fairing just as badly as the blue turtle, "Maybe we should turn back. We need to get back to Raphael, April, and Casey!"

"We can't," Leo said, shaking his head, "The tunnels are blocked off and even if we could get back to them, we'd just be leading all these Foot soldiers to them. We have to give them time to get the Donnies and Mikeys and everyone else from the lair."

New Raph huffed, but he didn't argue; Leo knew he knew he was right, whether he wanted to admit it or not. And truthfully? Leo barely wanted to admit it himself. At the end of the world, there was nothing more he wanted to do than to run back to his brothers, to be next to them, and swear that everything would be okay. And he knew that, as the oldest brother, New Raph must have wanted the same thing.

But this was how they could protect the others. And nothing was more important than keeping the Foot away from them.

So he kept running with New Raph, trying to slow down the pour of Foot soldiers as they did so. They ran through the tunnels, turning left and right depending on which tunnel was filled with Foot soldiers or not, heading closer and closer to—

Leo's eyes widened in shock. They were heading directly towards Shredder's lair.

"Raph!" Leo exclaimed, running right beside the larger turtle, "This is a trap!"

New Raph was just as shocked. "What do we do?!"

Leonardo looked around. There were consistently about 25 Foot soldiers following them at any point, and the longer they stood still or didn't take some out, the more would come. He had no idea what was waiting for them at Shredder's lair... but it obviously wasn't good. Only a couple tunnels more and they'd arrive—They had to escape before it was too late.

Leonardo didn't waste another second. He spun around, kicking the nearest Foot bot into the sewer water and positioning himself right in front of New Raph. He slammed a ninja smoke bomb on the nearest piece of dry ground. The two then made their escape up the ladder with barely seconds to spare. The smoke dissipated too quickly for them to totally escape unseen, but they were out on the street by the time the Foot were climbing up after them.

The streets were hauntingly empty.

But they could both still hear screaming; just because the people weren't right where Leo and New Raph were, that didn't mean they had managed to escape completely; they had simply vacated this construction site the ninjas had found themselves in. It made sense after all—a barely built (and certainly not structurally-sound) building was the worst place to hide from an alien invasion.

It was probably an even worse place to hide from killer robots built for an evil ninja clan, but Leo supposed they'd fought in more dire places before.