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01.
Prelude / 8:07 AM |
06.
8:39 AM |
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01.
Prelude / 8:07 AM |
06.
8:39 AM |
8:51 AM
Leonardo was in front of the television with Splinter when he got the call.
Caller ID indicated it was Donatello. Flipping it open, he spoke tersely, "Don, where are you?"
"Leo? Can you hear me?"
"Yes, I can hear you fine... where are you?"
"I can barely hear you, Leo... if you can hear me, I’m in the South Tower of the World Trade Center... something terrible has just happened to the Nor — "
"I know, Don, I’m watching it on television with Splinter. God, you’re right there next to it in the South Tower?"
"I came here to return something to Chang Lao when this happened..."
"Chang Lao?" Leo asked. He remembered well Donatello's friend. Often times he would bring Lao over for supper, sometimes he would train with them. Donatello found a kind of kindred spirit in the boy, and Splinter had always been fond of his visits as well.
"Look, I can’t talk much at the moment but I think I’ll be all right. I’m just going to go grab him, make sure he’s okay and make my way back down — "
"You listen to me, you need to get the hell out of there and you get the hell out of there right now, Donatello!" Leonardo shouted into the phone, simultaneously watching the hellish WTC scene play itself out on the television screen. "We don’t know what’s going on yet and — "
"I... I still can barely hear you, Leo... it’s very crazy here, I’m pretty sure we’re being evacuated... I’ll call you when I — "
With that, the phone call abruptly ended, the line on Don’s side dead.
"Don? Don?!" exclaimed. Upon an immediate redial of Don’s number, Leo was greeted only with Don’s voicemail. "Damn it!"
A knowing look was exchanged between Splinter and Leonardo; between master and protégé. "Go to him, my son," Splinter rasped, nodding weakly. "Do what you must."
He didn’t need to be told twice. Quickly bowing, he began rounding up his things he would need.
"Do what you must, Leonardo," Splinter continued, his narrow eyes nearly slits as he peered at his most adept pupil, "but do no more. This fight is not our own, this battle not ours to win."
Leonardo began to nod, but stopped himself short. He would not agree with his jonin, not this time.
He understood well his master’s sentiment, but this was coming from the same person that had once raised and trained he and his brothers to be ninja — there was no way to sugar-coat it, assassins — for the sole purpose of fighting his own battle in avenging the deaths of his former master Hamato Yoshi and Yoshi’s bride, Tang Shen, against Oroku Saki. The Turtles had been only thirteen years of age when they did the deed they had been raised from the infancy of their mutation to perform.
Thirteen!
As evil as The Shredder may or may not have been, as vile as his Foot Clan’s grip over New York City’s underworld may or may not have been, the act still did not feel any more righteous to Leo than it did a decade earlier. He was too old now to pretend it was anything other than what it was now.
"What I do now, Master..." Leonardo began, the words difficult to muster, "... I do as a member of this city. I do as — "
"An American...?" Splinter rested on his haunches, his walking stick bracing him further. His wizened gaze held Leonardo’s for some time, considering his words, before he finally relented. He understood, if only his sentiment. "Go then, my son. Do what you feel is right."
"I will, Master."
Nodding at that, Splinter turned to head back into his own sanctum. He spoke softly as he walked, "But come back to this old rat just the same."
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