Afire Love

For a second time in a night, Raphael screams in pain.

It's a fire coursing through his blood, smouldering up his bones, and burns coals in his lungs, and leaves him gasping for breath.

Never has he experienced pain so intense.

He's on his hands and knees, but his wrists give way, then he falls forward onto his elbows. The pain's too much, and now it's paralysing him.

Great. Just fucking great.

Blood that is not his seeps from wounds that are carved into his flesh, but they are not his either. None of the pain in Raphael's body is coming from his nerves.

Splinter explained to him once, "It's a curse disguised as a blessing, and only true soul mates feel each other's pain."

Leonardo's experienced it, of course. Him and Karai.

But, Raphael has no soul mate.

Maybe, he took a fall somewhere, or a few extra knocks to his already battered body, and some how forgot about them.

Because it's impossible. Raphael has no soul mate.

She's fading. Air is escaping her lungs, blood is slowly dripping from the claw marks carved out of her stomach, and her legs are already blistering from the flames that had penetrated the building.

Once shimmering golden hair in now streaked with blood and soot, and a once clean pavement is now drip feeding blood through the storm drain into the sewers.

A lone tanto blade with a red silk handles lies on it's side, whispering, then screaming guilt.

Of course the three of them hadn't been enough.

Hell, even the six of them had never been enough.

Casey struggles to stand for a moment, and struggles to comprehend how the night could have gone so wrong.

He heard the scream minutes ago. Maybe hours. It seems so freaking long ago, and he's lost all concept of time.

He uses his uninjured arm to lift himself slightly higher off the ground to tentatively grasp at his old hockey stick, he only thing in range, and the only thing they didn't break. Idiots.

He takes a deep breath, ignores the hammering in his chest, and uses the stick to push himself up onto his aching knees, and he pauses.

Breathes heavily for a moment, and breaks through the pain to stand.

Casey feels victorious for a second. Then remembers why he stood up.

Her scream.

Fucking hell, Jones.

Realises he can't fall down and stay down again. If he falls down once, he'll get up. If he falls down again, he'll just fucking get back up.

And, he doesn't need a map to know where he's going.

All Casey needs to do all follow the blood.

Raphael's legs give way again.

They're as weak as a child's now.

No surprise. Everything in his body feels like that of a child. Scratch that, a fucking a new born child.

But, his will is that of a man. If he can't walk, or stagger himself there, wherever there is, then he'll drag himself. The entire fucking way there.

So he does.

He drags, and pulls, and scrambles across the pavement and loose stones, and ignores the blood flaking and peeling off his plastron, and the skin of his leg, feels as though the fire had gotten to it.

But it hasn't. And he's confused as hell, but it doesn't let it bother him.

The way there is easy.

All he has to do is follow the blood.

The stars are beautiful tonight.

The sky is beautiful tonight.

The tears glistening in the corners of her eyes are emitting soft rainbows, and though they should not be, they are beautiful tonight.

Even Casey's strangled cry of an unrecognisable names is beautiful.

It should not be.

Nor should the blood, soaking her clothes, and staining every inch of her broken body.

Or the wails and sobs of a broken-hearted boy, as he strokes her once shimmering gold hair, now poisoned with streaks of red and blood.

But it is.

Everything is beautiful to April O'Neil tonight.

A second ago, Raphael's body was afire with pain, but now it's gone.

Just, gone.

He gets up on his knees, then his feet, and now he's running, faster and faster.

He moves without pain draining his energy And he moves like the fucking wind. Follows the broken trails of blood.

Round the corner, under a fences, -just scales it, no pain-, turns to the left, a frantic backtrack, and a turn to the right.

And stops. Stares.

A/N: Maybe a second part? Also, this is based off the earlier concepts of the 2012 show.