Brawl
Casey groaned and tried to open his eyes, but something was interfering with his vision. He attempted to lift an arm so that he could brush away whatever was keeping his eyes shut only to discover that his arms were restrained behind his back.
That seemed very important and Casey struggled to remember why, but it was difficult to think past the dull throb in his skull. There was also a roaring sound nearby that he couldn't seem to tune out and from the way it swelled then receded, he wondered if he was near the ocean. Since he couldn't feel a breeze on his skin or smell the spray of water, Casey doubted that was the case. One mystery at a time, he decided.
After a few seconds of tugging at his arms, Casey realized that they were bound together and when he leaned forward he found that they were also tied to something immovable.
At that moment the memories flooded back swiftly and painfully. Casey had been waiting for Raphael when he'd seen some men going into the parking garage of a nearby office building. Since the building was supposedly closed for the night, the activity aroused Casey's curiosity.
Stationing himself across the street so that he could see the entrance, Casey had only been in place for a few minutes when three dark town cars had turned into the garage. The gate had opened to allow them access, and the cars had chosen the ramp which took them down to the basement level.
Casey hadn't liked the look of that one bit and with a quick glance around him, he'd crossed the street. Flattening himself against the brickwork on the outside of the building, he'd carefully peered around the corner, trying to get a glimpse of whoever was operating the entry gate.
The booth was dark, but Casey saw the red embers from the end of a lit cigarette blaze to life for a brief second. That was another ominous sign; people with legitimate business in that building wouldn't need to station a guard to sit in the dark and watch for intruders.
Sliding down the wall, Casey lowered himself to the ground and crept inside the entrance. No light penetrated the area he'd chosen as an entry point and unless another car came around the corner, the guard probably wouldn't see him until it was too late.
Just as he reached the outer wall of the booth, Casey heard raised voices coming from the basement garage, followed by shouting. He could just make out a faint glow of light from the lower level and guessed it was produced by the car's headlights.
Casey was debating whether he should knock out the guard and investigate further, or wait for Raph to show up, when a loud scream bounced off of the garage walls. Pure instinct made Casey lunge towards the sound and something that felt like a ton of bricks hit him on the back of his head.
He woke up on a cold concrete floor, stripped to the waist and devoid of his weapons. When Casey reached up to touch his head, a fresh stab of pain made him gasp and his hand came down sticky with his own blood.
"Get up vigilante," a man in a business suit said to him.
Casey struggled to his feet, dizzy and disoriented, and tried to see the man better but his vision was bleary. Squeezing his eyes shut, he blinked several times and tried again, getting a clearer picture.
The town cars were parked at an angle around him; evenly spaced to form a rough circle which their headlights illuminated. Standing on the outer rim of the circle were dozens of people, some dressed in the finest clothes money could buy, but most were not. What they did have in common was that they were all staring at him eagerly.
"Can he fight?" another man asked.
"He'd better hope so," the first answered and then turned his attention back to Casey. "I'm sure you don't remember me, but I want to thank you for running the Purple Dragons out of our territory. They were putting a real damper on our business."
Casey squinted at him for a second and then spat in disgust. "I remember you, you're mob scum. You're no better than the Dragons."
"Neighborhood's gotta belong to somebody," the man said, unfazed by Casey's insults. "This here is one of our little enterprises. We pay guys to fight and the winners get a little something extra. In return for our generosity, they do their best in front of a live audience of gambling connoisseurs."
"Fight club," Casey growled.
"Something like that," the man acknowledged. "Sometimes we provide a special show outside of the regular bouts. I like to call it 'last man standing'. We prefer to feature guys like you, vigilante. Tough guys who think they have all the answers and like to butt in where they don't belong."
"I'm not fighting for your greedy blood thirsty friends," Casey said.
"No one ever accused me of not giving a guy a choice," the man said, grinning slightly. "So here's yours; you fight your way through at least five guys of my choosing and if you're still on your feet at the end, I'll let you live. If you don't want to fight, then we'll shoot you right where you stand. Since I'm in show business, we won't be making a kill shot either; we'll be taking bets on how many bullets are needed to bring you down."
From beneath lowered brows, Casey scanned the crowd. He wasn't sure what he hoped to see; maybe someone who appeared shocked by what was happening. All he saw was avarice, ignorance, hatred, and blood lust.
"I'll fight," Casey finally said. "I don't for a minute think you'll let me leave here alive, but at least this way I get to kick some ass before I go down."
That much of the deal Casey remembered fairly well; it was afterwards that things got hazy. As far as fair fights went, this wasn't one. The first guy Casey was matched up with was as big as him, but that guy wasn't hampered by a concussion, something that Casey was sure he had.
Casey took his first opponent down after a few minutes of toe to toe punching, beating the man into unconsciousness as the rules stated. It wouldn't have surprised Casey one bit if they'd said he was going to have to kill his opponents. Probably they didn't want to lose the money they'd put into training their fighters. One thing Casey was sure of, his opponents weren't bothered by the same morals Casey operated under; they would certainly kill him.
Everything else was mostly a blur; the only thing Casey knew for sure was that he'd been badly beat up. Now he remembered why he couldn't see well; one eye was puffed shut and the other was nearly as bad.
Why he was tied up off to the side of the fighting ring he still didn't understand. Whether he'd won all five fights or lost one, he should have been dead by now.
The roar he'd heard earlier came back and Casey recognized it now; it was the sound of the crowd shouting. It was a sound that rolled over him during his fights; something he didn't really hear but mostly felt. The roar stopped abruptly, followed by a low babble of voices.
"Well, we seem to have quite a brawler amongst us this time," the man who had spoken to Casey earlier said. "We need to find you a more suitable opponent."
"Take your best shot," Raphael grunted.
Casey's head jerked up and he strained to see what was happening. His mutant turtle friend was standing in the center of the fighting ring, a huge man unconscious at his feet. Other than his belt, the rest of Raph's gear, including his sais, was missing.
Raph's hand wraps were stained red with blood, and splatters of it were on his upper body. Casey could see that his friend had a bloody lip, but other than that seemed unharmed.
Blood. That struck another memory chord in Casey's fogged brain. He'd been on his hands and knees, blood dripping onto the concrete from a broken nose. One of his fights was against a man who looked exactly like a square wrecking ball. Exhausted and beaten up, the few punches Casey managed to land didn't make much of a dent in the man.
Casey had tried to pull himself back to his feet, but his body wasn't obeying commands. He couldn't even manage to send the right signals from his brain in order to even crawl out of the man's path, so instead he braced himself for the strike that would kill him.
Before he felt the impact of that final blow however, the thud of something solid and heavy hit the ground next to Casey. A quick glance showed him his opponent; face up and out cold, and a pair of emerald green legs standing nearby.
The cold metal of a gun barrel was pressed against Casey's temple just then and he froze. Bits of conversation came to him as he teetered on the edge of unconsciousness; the mob man making a deal with Raph that he wouldn't shoot Casey if Raph would take his place. Bare fists, no weapons, against five men and the one Raph had just knocked out didn't count.
Casey remembered Raph asking him if he was all right, but Casey couldn't manage more than a grunt at the time. Of course Raph had taken the deal; Casey would have done the same if their roles were reversed. Casey really didn't want his friend there though; it was bad enough to know that he was going to die, but it was worse to think he was going to get Raph killed too.
Someone had grabbed a handful of Casey's hair in order to drag him out of the fighting ring and after that Casey had lost consciousness.
Awake now, he tried to gauge how much time had passed. While he looked around the garage, Casey used his fingers to feel for whatever it was that was keeping him bound against one of the concrete support beams. He felt the smooth plastic of a zip tie on his wrists, but it was plain rope that was threaded through the tie, wound around his arms, and wrapped in loops to the beam.
He didn't have much leeway to lean forward without cracking the bones in his arms, but if he stood up slowly enough, Casey knew he could slide the rope upwards. Since that wouldn't do him a hell of a lot of good, Casey tabled that knowledge for later.
The man that Raph had beaten was unceremoniously dragged out of the ring and another stepped in to take his place. This one closely resembled a mountain Casey had once seen on TV; well over six feet tall, with bulging muscles and a jaw like an anvil.
"You're good," the mob man said, his tone lightly amused. "The odds against you right now are amazing. Try to win again, okay? You'll make a fortune for me."
"Fuck off," Raph told him.
Casey saw Raph glance in his direction and offered his friend a smile of encouragement. He knew it probably looked more like a grimace, but Raph winked at him nonetheless. Raph's expression was fierce as he faced his opponent, but for a split second Casey had seen the devil-may-care light in Raph's gold eyes and knew his pal was up to something.
The fighter threw a right hook that Raph easily blocked and then the turtle stepped in and hammered the man's rib cage. It was a hard blow, but the fighter was barely moved by it, bringing an arm down to trap Raph's fist against his hip.
When the fighter threw his right again, it was aimed at a spot beneath Raph's arm. Raph grunted and the crowd began to shout encouragements to the fighter. Raph reached up and grabbed the back of the fighter's neck, jerking his head down as Raph's knee lifted.
A spray of blood from the fighter's busted nose splashed onto the crowd and Raph spun the man, twisting out of his grip as he brought his fist down on the back of the fighter's head. The big man stumbled forward for a couple of steps and then back fisted Raph as the turtle tried to follow up on his advantage.
Casey watched Raph smash a fist into the fighter's already bloody nose and then movement atop one of the town cars drew his attention. In the dim light, he could make out a turtle shaped form slide off the car and out of sight.
The crowd noise swelled again as the fighter sent Raph sprawling with an uppercut, but the turtle rolled out of it as the big man stomped down at him. Leaping high, Raph twirled into a spinning back kick that caught the side of the fighter's prominent jaw and snapped his head to the side.
Casey's attention was suddenly pulled away from the fight when the man standing guard over him hit the ground face first. His unconscious form was pulled out of sight swiftly and then Casey felt something tugging at his arms.
"Can you walk dude?" Mikey asked in a whisper.
"Dunno," Casey answered honestly. "Where's my stuff?"
The tie on his wrists fell off as Mikey cut it and Casey's arms dropped to his sides. Numb, Casey couldn't use them to help himself stand and Mikey grabbed his waist, pulling him to his feet effortlessly.
"Your bag's behind us," Mikey said, "but don't even think about fighting. We plan to be out of here before you get the feeling back in your hands."
"Raph . . . those men," Casey croaked, trying to pull away from Mikey as his friend led him back towards the ramp.
"My bro's have it covered," Mikey said. "Raph's just keeping them busy while Leo and Don finish setting their trap."
"Trap?" Casey repeated dumbly, glancing back over his shoulder.
Just as he did so, Casey saw Raph's form barrel through the air, having used his opponent's shoulders as a launching platform. The crowd's shouts reached a crescendo as it became obvious that the turtle was making a break for freedom.
At the same moment that Raph's flying body cleared the circle of onlookers, a bright light flashed with sudden blazing brilliance, followed a millisecond later by a high pitched buzz and a zapping sound. The enthusiastic shouts from the crowd turned to screams that were cut off mid-voice as the entire group collapsed onto the pavement.
Casey saw Raph, Leo, and Don striding towards him, each wearing a grin that was unique to their personality. Don was carrying Casey's mask and golf bag, and Leo tossed Raph's weapons to him, handing his mask and pads over when they were next to each other.
"Wha' . . . ?" Casey managed to squeeze that much of his question past swollen lips before giving up.
"We dumped a couple of gallons of water under their feet while they were watching Raph fight," Don said. "No one even noticed. Then we attached jumper cables to each of the car's batteries and tossed the loose ends into the water."
"I had to take your guy out because he was too far from the circle to get shocked and we didn't want him to shoot you," Mikey said.
"Next time pal, wait for the real ninja ta get here before ya' decide ta start sneaking around," Raph said as he tied his mask into place. "Not that I didn't enjoy giving my fists a workout, but ya' sure got the shit beat out of ya' before we got everything set up so I could take your place."
Mikey hefted Casey a bit higher and started pulling him up the ramp. "Fun time's over dude. The cops will be here any minute to clean up this mess."
"Raph . . . ." Casey muttered.
"Yeah, yeah," Raph said, cutting him off. "Whatever ya' gotta say can wait."
"No!" Casey dug his heels in, forcing Mikey to stop.
"What's so damn important?" Raph asked, frowning.
Staring ferociously at the red banded turtle, Casey asked, "How many?"
"How . . . ?" Raph looked startled for a second and then chuckled. "Ya' got three of 'em before ya' went down."
Mikey tried pulling Casey up the ramp but the man still hung back. The far off sound of sirens warned them they didn't have a lot of time to dally.
"You?" Casey asked, his glare still fixed on Raph.
"No dice, pal. I'll tell ya' once we get ya' out of here and give Donny a chance ta patch ya' up," Raph said, grabbing Casey's belt and forcing him to move. When Casey growled in frustration, Raph merely howled with laughter.
Casey understood that the ninja turtle was his best friend in the world, but sometimes Raph could be a real ass.