Like Father Like Son [ROTTMNT]

Chapter Eighteen: His Name

Raph's shoulder still twinged in pain with every little movement, a pretty clear sign that he was not supposed to be out here in the middle of the night, tonfa gripped in each hand. But Donnie and Pops had said he wouldn't actually be healed entirely for three to five more months, which was out of the question, so here he was. Probably doing something stupid.

Not stupid. Necessary, he corrected himself, squinting out over the dimly lit New York alleyways.

"Spot anything yet?" he asked April, his foot tapping anxiously against the pavement.

She lifted Donnie's spare goggles from her eyes to give him one of her signature O'Neil glowers. "No. And I won't ever if you keep asking me that every few seconds." She pulled them back down, swiveling her head to check out a group of teens jaywalking across one of the streets. "A lot of yokai out under disguises tonight, though."

Raph nodded even though April wasn't looking at him anymore, checking on his other siblings to see what they were up to as they all waited. Mikey was squatting down to work on a map he had spread out over the roof, a green pen in his mouth as he used a blue one to add another x-mark onto the paper. Donnie watched him, his arms crossed and brow furrowed.

"Read me the next one?" Mikey asked.

"That was it. All fourteen known locations."

Mikey nodded, and then bent back over the paper to connect all of the locations with a line.

No one said that it would take Donnie's tech five seconds to do this, but Raph knew it. No doubt April and Mikey also knew it. And, from the way Donnie looked away when Raph glanced at him, he certainly knew it.

The leader took a deep breath and pinched the skin in between his eyes. It wasn't like Raph couldn't understand why Donnie was being stubborn about not using his tech after the whole thing with recent revelations. But with Leo's safety on the line, Raph couldn't help but worry that maybe he wasn't pushing Donnie hard enough to... not get over it, but delay overthinking it. There would be time for that later.

Well, it was too late to go back to the lair now to get Donnie's spare tech-bo and battle shell. There still had been no alerts tonight, and with at least three, if not more, sightings every single night, it was only a matter of time until the fifteenth one happened.

Another few minutes passed in silence before all of their phones chirped, all four members whisking them out and lighting up their faces with a soft blue glow in a manner of trained repetition.

Raph squinted at the small map, tracing the dot back to where they were. His hand shook slightly- this might be it. "Two miles from here- we can probably make that," he said, his voice strangely level compared to the adrenaline thrumming through him. His heartbeat echoed in his head, his breath quickening. "Let's go get him, then."

They moved quickly, not speaking except for short and terse directions given as they pushed themselves to move faster, faster. They leapt across buildings with larger gaps than they would usually attempt, clambered past apartments with little dogs that started yipping at the not-so-subtle intruders until the room's lights flicked on. They couldn't slow down to be careful. They had been late once, twice, thrice before. Not this time.

This time, Leo's location seemed to be on top of an office building, poking out from a cluster of shorter buildings on three of its sides. Similarly tall buildings flanked the back of it; someone would need to make sure that Leo and Draxum couldn't slip away in that direction if they chose not to flee through a portal this time.

That would be the ideal, at least; things got complicated, fast, if Draxum brought portals into play.

But one issue to tackle at a time; the right building was across the street, with no clear way to get over there within feasible jumping distance. "Donnie, can you-" Raph eyed his brother's speckled shell, bare to the world for the first time on a mission since... a while. Actually, he couldn't remember if Donnie had ever gone battle-shell-less before. Without the ability to fly, it looked like they'd have to get up to that building the hard way. He turned to Mikey instead. "Can your weapon get us across?"