You're Needed Here Now, Donnie

Chapter 6 - Shell-acking

*Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise.

*Author's Note: Here's chapter 6 of 'You're Needed Here Now, Donnie.' Prepare yourself for another cliffhanger ending. Thank you so much for reading my story. I really, really appreciate it. Please let me know if you like it.  ;)  CJ

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Chapter 6 - Shell-acking

There was a naïve part of Donnie holding out hope that Mikey or even Master Splinter might come crashing through the glass windows at any second, just in the nick of time to save him. There was another desperate part of him still clinging to the chance that Leo or Raph could pull off some kind of miracle and push him out of the way.

But the logical part of Donnie told him that it was too late . . .

Alas, logic prevailed.

"Donnie! No!" Was the last thing that Hamato Donatello heard his older brothers yell before being struck down.

Rahzar backhanded Donnie with such tremendous force, it sent the powerless turtle flying across the loft area, several feet away from where the mutant dog stood. Donnie emitted a high-pitched yelp as he soared through the air, but the yelp was soon cut off by his sudden collision with a brick wall. Upon impact, there came the sickening sound of Donnie slamming head-first into the hard surface, and then, his body awkwardly collapsed to the floor, as though he was boneless. He landed in a heap on the concrete, lying motionless on his side, directly below the windows that he would have gone right through if Rahzar's backhand would have hurled him just a few inches over to the left or the right.

Propelled by pure anger, Leo and Raph both charged at Rahzar, but they were just a few seconds too late. Donnie was already out of commission by the time they got within striking range of Rahzar, but they did manage to save their genius brother from a potential second assault. As Leo and Raph had stormed towards Rahzar, they had seen that the monster had been actually contemplating kicking Donnie while he was down, but a roar from Raph had distracted Rahzar from doing so. Rahzar had spun around just in time to see the hotheaded turtle barrel into his chest like a linebacker.

Raph's objective was to tackle the mutant canine down to the floor and pummel him into oblivion, but just like Donnie's futile attempt to kick Rahzar down only seconds ago, Raph was unable to inflict any actual damage on the larger mutant. He wound up doing more harm to himself than to his intended target. A bit dazed from his crash into Rahzar, Raph gingerly rubbed the top of his now-ringing head and staggered backwards a couple of clumsy steps, nearly knocking Leo over in the process. That moment of ungainliness was just the opening Rahzar needed.

"Oh crud," was all that Raph got out before Rahzar flung his right arm out at him and swiftly knocked the unbalanced red-banded turtle over the loft railing, sending him tumbling down to the lower level. Raph let out a loud yell that was filled with both anger and alarm as he plummeted to the floor. His descent ended with a painful grunt, and then, there was the deafening sound of silence.

"Raph!" Leo shouted and his heart was about to jump out of his chest, it was pounding so hard. Having just witnessed both of his younger brothers go down in less than a minute, Leo was on the threshold of a full-fledged panic attack, but he somehow managed to keep his wits about him. He forced himself to focus his attention on Rahzar. After seeing his brothers' failed attempts to take the beast down with brute force, Leo decided a different line of attack was in order. He found himself wondering 'what would Master Splinter do?' as he oftentimes tended to do in highly stressful situations. It was either that or he would ponder what his all-time favorite television hero, Captain Ryan, would do, but the good captain's rather overdramatic solutions generally didn't apply to real-life situations. After all, Leo was pretty sure there wasn't a disintegrator or a thermal charge anywhere in the immediate vicinity.