Off Duty Education
Disclaimer: I don't own the TMNT, just the story idea. Not sure where it's going to end up, but that's half of the fun! R&R are appreciated, and thanks to those who read and reviewed my other story, 'The Wizard of ooze'!
All was quiet in the 12th Marine Corps District Headquarters, motion sensing lights flickering out one by one, the occupants long gone home to their wives, kids, girlfriends, booze- whatever it is people did after hours here.
Except me.
I was too wrapped up in finishing a collage of the latest ceremony the command went through to notice, or care, what hour it was until at long last, I was satisfied with what I saw on my tablet screen. Frowning in concentration, I made a few adjustments to the color balance of the Commanding Officer's image- his fifty minute speech that had me falling asleep in my boots, lordy that man could talk. Only he was the worst kind of speaker, the monotonous kind that droned on and on and on in the same tone of voice until you either wanted to scream from frustration, or throw a chair. It's been done, believe me. You'd think with the kind of money our government spends on making Marines and Marine officer's, they'd get some kind of speech class, so when they tried giving us pep talks we'd feel like shooting the enemy, rather than ourselves.
"I guess that works, not like he'll get any prettier," I grumbled, saving the Photoshop document and shutting the program down. A quick check on my Outlook account revealed nothing of interest, and I shut that down as well, before turning my screen off and straightening my desk up. Pushing my chair in, I threw my blouse back on (Having gone 'boots and utes') and headed down toward the Enlisted Female locker room, flicking the light switch off on my way out.
Stripping down to my skivvies, I rolled up my cammies, shoved them on a shelf, put my boot bands inside their respective boots, tossed my dirty socks in a plastic bag and headed to the shower room, shower shoes (flip flops for you civilians) slap-slapping gently on the tiled floor. I pulled the plain blue curtain back and rotated the shower handle all the way into the red.
Steam billowed as I shucked my skivvies, shower shoes still on, and stepped into the welcoming steam billowing from the closet sized space. Cold weather or not, I always liked showering before I went home. I didn't like going home with my hair still gelled up in a typical Marine Female bun. I've noticed that announcing, discretely or not, that you were in the military often invited more annoyance than peace. I quickly washed the ton or so of gel out with two shampoos and let my conditioner sit for a while, replenishing the damaged strands while I leaned against the wall, enveloped in warmth. Sighing loudly, I rinsed, shut the steam off and hurried back out into the locker area, wrapping my fluffy towel around me tighter as I shivered.
Donning my 'civvies', a term us military types use when referring to regular clothes, I strapped on my shoulder holster (I learned a few things since I've been in), checked the safety on my CZ 95B double-action .45, and inspected my spare mags- a ritual I go through before I leave work, or leave home, because bad times made for good lessons learned, and I made it a point after those bad times to carry at least one form of protection on me at all times. Call me a nut or paranoid, but when push comes to shove, I'd rather be ready than dead (or worse). New York City isn't the safest city known to man, and the police have a bad habit of showing up too little too late for my taste. Besides, in my family, if you don't have your own gun, something ain't right upstairs. Least that's what my grandfather said when he bought me mine.
Let me back track a little. I've only recently moved to the area, having chosen an Independent Duty after serving six years in the Corps, three of which overseas in harms way, the other three in Garrison, and am not a New Yorker of origin. I love my job though, and if New York is where they need me, New York is where I go.
Anyway, I geared up to go home, and go home I did, securing my locker and slipping out the side door to make tracks to the subway station nearby that would take me to my small, but homey apartment.
'Damn, was it really this cold earlier?' my body complained, and I told it to shut up and put up until we got home, stepping my pace up a little to get my blood flowing good and strong.
A short sub ride later, I was on the street that took me home when the skies opened and the heavens poured down.
"Aw, just great" I cried, ducking under a shop awning, irritatingly conscious of my thin jacket, the declining temperature, and the mile I had left to walk. "Go frickin figure this would happen." I said sullenly, glaring skyward. "Perfect way to end a perfect frickin day."
Gritting my teeth, I resolved to sprint that mile, fully knowing that either way I was going to wind up drenched, and probably chilled to the bone. Damn, but this did bite.
I gathered my mettle and shot out from under the canopy, legs pumping in a furious attempt to outrun the fat, densely falling raindrops. Thunder crashed overhead as, panting, I slowed to a trot before resigning to my fate, bundling my jacket tighter around me and trudged onward, destination not even in sight due to the deluge.
A noise caught my attention. Swiveling my head, I saw several shadows lurking about fifteen feet from the mouth of the alleyway I was currently crossing in front of. Pausing, I saw the flash of metal as a chain whipped overhead. A cry of pain caused me to jerk back the way I came, and peer around, taking full account of what was happening.
Two punks were beating at a lumpish looking man in a trench, who was putting up a good fight, but slowly losing. Lightning flickered, and I saw the blood oozing down his front in a red waterfall, presumably from a superficial head wound. The punks were young, and must have caught the victim off guard. My blood boiled.
If there was one thing I hated at all in this world, was bullies. Kind of ironic, given the country I lived in and served, but nonetheless, a person was being hurt, and I wanted to do something about it.
'Don't be a hero,' Rationality shrilled through my brain. Reason and Common Sense agreed.
'Bugger that,' I thought, slipping my pistol out of it's holster, heart thumping from adrenaline. 'This is a BAD IDEA!' Reason shouted again, but was beaten down by Courage and Compassion.
Holding it out with arms slightly relaxed at the elbows, I crept up on the scene, using a stealthy type of walk I'd learned in special training sessions, when they were teaching us how to clear buildings in a city during a firefight. I knew I was rusty, but my dark clothes and jeans, the shadows and the pouring rain helped a lot, masking myself and my careful footsteps.
It also helped that these guys were busy whaling on the poor man, who slumped to ground. The bigger thug raised a length of pipe above his head, preparing to strike.
"FREEZE!" I shouted with as much force as my voice could muster. Given that I spent three years on the drill field, screaming at recruits to 'go faster', that wasn't as hard as I thought. "DROP YOUR WEAPONS!"
The two's attention diverted from their hapless victim to me, I took a step forward, gun trained on the closest attacker. "I said, DROP your WEAPONS! NOW!"
The farther edged closer to me, their previous target forgotten and bleeding on the ground, as the closer allowed a malicious grin to cross his face. I took my aim from his head to a knee, cocking my eyebrow- appearing much cooler on the outside than the inside. Inside, I was a mess.
'Dammit, why did I think they wouldn't just take off when I showed myself!' one third of me gibbered, while another third was clamoring for them to 'bring it on', and the last third was reminding the first that Marines don't gibber in fear, especially not in front of the enemy. The closer inched forward, his length of chain trailing behind his arm. I saw the glimmer of thought cross his mind and raised my weapon to chest level. "Come closer and I take out a lung." I growled with more conviction than I felt. 'Please God, please don't make him force my hand,' I begged. 'I don't want to have to shoot him, no matter how bad he is.'
Not so. The second had managed to maneuver himself to where he could throw his pipe. He did, I dodged, and the closer charged me, whirling his chain like a deadly flail. Training took over as my sights lined up with the chain-swinger's left thigh. A shot cracked through the alley, and he fell, bleeding and howling. His buddy paused as he cried and moaned from the alley floor, clutching at the vicious gouge my slug carved into the outer meaty portion. That one down, I sidestepped away from him, training my sights on the remaining punk.
I stared coldly down the sight, the killer instinct loose in my body. "This next one won't miss" I was lying about missing the first shot, but his eyes widened in shock and fear anyway. He backpedaled slowly, glancing at his buddy once, before fleeing down the alley toward the chain link fence. Lightning again illuminated the scene, and I brought the barrel around to the punk that was grounded. He spat curses at me, the least of which had something to do with my mother. I stepped towards him, a flash movement that cut him off in mid-streak.
"You've got ten seconds before I put a hole in your chest big enough to drive a Mack through, punk," I growled, cocking the hammer back on the pistol and aiming for the heart. An unnecessary movement, but my point got across. "MOVE!" I shouted, lunging towards him. He shouted in fear, dragging himself upright to run-slash-limp down the alley to the fence his buddy leaped earlier. Once he was over, and I was satisfied that nothing else lurked in the alley, I holstered my gun and ran over to the unmoving lump on the ground, rain plastering my hair to my face and neck. I rolled him over, as a bolt of lightning pierced the sky.
I gasped at what I saw, the sound quickly covered by the deafening peal of thunder following the strike.
A jagged wound cut an angry line across the man's forehead, almost to the temple, blood running in rivulets down broad cheeks to a sinewy neck, gathering in the hollow of the collarbone. I snatched my cell phone out of my bag, and was punching in 911 when a hand arrested further movement.
I shrieked, the fear I'd suppressed finally breaking through the mental barriers I'd erected, shooting through my veins as fast as the adrenaline had earlier. Falling back on my rear, gasping as the creature rolled over, pushing weakly at the concrete in a feeble, but real attempt to rise. Instinct shoved fear aside and I rocked forward on my knees, grabbing it's arms to stop it from hurting itself more.
"Don't," I heard myself order. "You're injured, don't try to move because you'll only make it worse." I hooked my arms under it shoulders and heaved, succeeding in bringing it to it's knees. I knelt on it's right, the seemingly non-injured side, and looped its arm over my shoulders. "Ready?" I asked, hoping it could understand what I was trying to do. I felt, rather than saw, it nod. "Okay, one... two... three!" I said, grunting at the effort of lifting this thing. It was definitely a lot heavier than it had first looked.
When we were finally in a stable, upright position, I looked around in dismay. There was no way I could get this guy to the nearest hospital with no car, and from the looks of it, the only hospital he'd wind up in would be one with doctors none of us would ever want to see. Something caught my hearing, which had grown a lot dimmer over the course of my time in service. I strained my hearing to it's limits, trying to comprehend the barely audible murmur.
"P...please..." I heard it whisper, voice low, rough and raw.
"What?" I asked concernedly, as we took a wobbling step forward towards the alley exit.
"N-no... hospital..." I heard, a tremor that shook the creature wrenching at my heartstrings. I choked back tears of empathy as it's pitiful voice pleaded. "Please... please..." My heart went out to the poor beleaguered thing. Dammit to hell, why hadn't I jumped in sooner?
"Okay, no hospitals," I soothed, squashing my self-deprecating thoughts as I urged it forward, the unrelenting rain washing over us. "Let's see if we can get you to my apartment, we'll go from there. You're seriously hurt," I intoned gravely, as we lurched forward, my back straining from the effort of carrying the brunt of its weight. "I don't know how much I can do for you when we arrive, but we won't know until we get there."
I took a long moment to check my surroundings when we reached the alley mouth, after what felt like an eternity, and determining the streets clear, the citizens preferring their dry indoors, I wrapped my arm around the creatures broad waist again, eager to get us home safely.
'What are you?' I wondered, stealing a quick glance at the head that rested on the shoulder of the arm thrown across mine, raindrops pattering on its bare skin in discordant rhythm.
'Where did you come from?'
A/N: Just an FYI for anyone who's confused, a 'blouse' is the jacket part of the digital camouflage uniform that Service members wear; the breast pockets have their last name and branch of service, and their rank is pinned to the collar. 'Boots and Utes' is when a service member is wearing just the skivvie shirt, trousers, and boots. It's usually worn when performing labor of sorts, like cleanup or physical training, or setting up camp.