Italics are flashbacks
Bold is thought
Chapter 1
Disclaimer: I do not own the turtles…if I did they would probably be dead from my tough love. ^^::
Warning: Hints of Raph/Mikey and Don/Leo along with violence. Also, this is based on the "Same as it never Was" episode just a bit.
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Lower Manhattan, New York
November 3rd, 2038
6:01 PM
Laughter. Piercing laughter, hateful laughter, whatever you could call the laughter in a negative connotation was what it was. Orange shuddered, the dirty cloth on his nunchakus stained with blood and nervous sweat. A sweat that carried on the smell of salt and water…of the sea that Leonardo and Splinter had made their final crossing overseas before disappearing.
Everything on himself smelled of that accursed salt and water, at least to him, anyway. The dirt on his green body smelled of it, for instance, along with his many scars that were caked in blood and horrid sewer water. A source of it also seemed to be his tattered, no longer supple, leather belt that held his nunchakus as well as his torn and bloodstained orange mask.
Shaking his head as he crossed into an abandoned alleyway, he dipped his body into the cool shadows like a fish back in native water. Normally, Orange would have stopped for a moment…would have thought about calling Red, but not today. The laughter was following him even worse then it had been over the past few years. It used to disappear after a few moments, but now it followed him like the guilt over Leo.
Things had changed over the past couple of years; the city had had a sudden boom in technological advances due to a mysterious scientist. The mysterious "savior" had set up many a device, many a trap, for the unsuspecting citizens. For once, the politicians had been right- he was too good to be true. Now everyone lived in fear, not because of the Shredder, but because of robots, machinery, and the scientist himself.
Orange, previously named Michelangelo Splinter, now had to live both in fear of the humans and the robots. It was this fear that drove both him and Raphael "Red" Splinter, to change their names into the color of their masks. The enemy had used their names to trick them once before…and that treacherous trick had cost the two turtles another two family members…April and Casey.
He gave a smirk, chiding himself about thinking such things. However, thinking about fear had made him forget the laughter long enough to catch something with his sensitive ears. Orange turned his head suddenly to the alleyway entrance, his breath hitching as a mouser walked into the alleyway. These mousers were similar to those of Baxter Stockman, the loony scientist who the mutant turtle and his brothers had faced oh so long ago, but very much improved. Orange didn't really fear these mousers, despite their vast improvements, but he had to get rid of them. If not for his own safety, then for his brother, who he knew was still taking it easy after last week's fight against the scientist's robotic foot soldiers.
Orange took out his nunchakus, twirling them silently as he circled his prey, in the shadows. The "kill" was silent, even with his noisy nunchakus. He couldn't help but smile as he saw the now broken mouser fall to the ground, its head a deep welt that made it look even more hated. It was a weak one, probably a prototype that had gotten off of its regular schedule, Orange noted.
A chorus of chuckles arose from out of nowhere; the laughter's ringing slicing fresh wounds into painful memories. The sound was like pizza, or ice cream, while bearing the bitter taste of cyanide or of another unknown poison. Orange stumbled away from the mouser, dropping his nunchakus to the ground as the world went vertigo for a moment. SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT THE DAMN UP! Orange screamed to himself, in his head, punching the wall next to his right hand.
He looked like Red for a moment, his fresh anger searing itself on his right hand in the form of a new gash, a new, tiny scar. "Cowabunga bastard…," he gasped, giving a dark chuckle as he removed his bloody knuckle from the wall. He turned, not glancing at the wrangled metallic "flesh" of the mouser, but at the nunchakus on the ground. Orange stared for a minute, caught in his own head again, before giving a tedious sigh and picking them up.
He turned them for a second before placing them on his tattered belt. The twirling always helped to clear his mind and remind him of priorities. In that one second, he remembered he had to meet Red at their old home, the most painful home in his own memory. Orange gave a sigh, looking up at the darkening sky before he took off, fading like a shadow into the falling nighttime.
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