Bear In The City Chapter 1: Bear In The City, a teenage mutant ninja turtles fanfic

The tranquil New York City night air was shattered. Not because of a fairly recent previous encounter with the Kraang, but the ensuing family feud.

"IF WE'D DONE IT MY WAY, THIS WOULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED!"

Raphael and Leonardo were fighting. Again. Donatello rolled his eyes and, taking Michaelangelo by the back of his shell, backed away from the two older brothers as they got in each others' faces.

"Your way would've ruined the ambush! We had them, but then you had to go and make a big fuss just because we didn't do it your way! Like a child!"

Donnie and Mikey's eyes bugged and they turned to Raph, who'd begun to shake with rage at Leo's words.

"Y-you…..you little AAAAAAGGHH!"

Raph took out his sais and pounced at Leo, who was ready for this and countered the attack with his twin katana with a look on his face that wasn't all that surprised and more angry. Donnie and Mikey, meanwhile, jumped when their brothers' weapons entered the argument.

"Guys, that's enough!"

Metal clashed against metal. His baby brother clinging to his arm with wide, stunned eyes, Donnie felt a surge of adrenaline, from both fear and anger. Master Splinter wasn't there to split this up, and if this escalated any further, someone could get hurt. He had to step in.

"I said that's ENOUGH!"

With a swing of his bo staff, a move neither older brother anticipated, Donnie knocked Leo's katanas to the ground and sent Raph's sais flying. One sai clattered to the alley floor harmlessly, the other was sent flying to a trashcan that sat across the alley. The sai landed in the trashcan with a loud clang, and from the depths of the trashcan came a sharp animal scream.

The four brothers froze, fight now put to an end. Not taking his eyes off the trashcan, Leo picked up his katanas and sheathed them silently. Raph retrieved his one sai and slowly approached the trashcan to get the other. All the boys sat on a hair trigger, ready to go ninja on any poor soul who snuck up on them. Leaning over the trashcan, Raph peeked inside.

Indeed, his sai lay at the bottom of the trashcan, but across from the weapon, huddled snuggly in the bottom corner of the container, was a fluffy furred, dark brown puppy. The pup was trembling, dark brown eyes behind a dark, almost black furred face stared up at Raph with unspoken terror, tail between his hind legs and floppy ears almost buried in the fluffy pelt. And on the pup's head was a smear of red that matted the fur.

Raph couldn't say anything, stunned, and a twinge of guilt hit him. Had his sai hit the pup?

He reached in to grab the sai, the guilt worsening as the puppy squeezed himself into the trashcan wall away from him, shaking hard enough to rattle the can and turning his head away, refusing to look the turtle in the eye.

"Raph?"

"What's in there, dude?"

Raph didn't answer his brothers, checking his sai. No blood, but that didn't mean anything. The pup was still hurt, and he'd never heard any animal scream like that.

It had to have been his sai. And that meant it had to have been his fault.

Putting the sai away like the other, Raph leaned back into the trashcan, getting his three fingered hand under the pup who immediately began screaming in terror.

"No no no, it's okay little guy! It's okay!" Raph tried to comfort the terrified puppy as he lifted it out of the trashcan. Now his brothers could see what made the racket, and Mikey awed and squealed over the puppy.

Said pup squirmed and wiggled in Raph's hands, still screaming like he was being skinned alive. Raph tried to hold him closer, to try and calm him down, but the pup's legs stuck out stiffly, trembling and screaming pitifully. Donnie approached, seeing the blood on the puppy's head, and the pup gave one last whimper before burying his face in the crook of Raph's arm and going silent, still shaking.

The brothers said nothing. Mikey teared up over the puppy, Donnie was concerned, Raph guilt ridden, and Leo couldn't help but stare at the puppy in shock.

"…How'd he get in there?" Leo finally spoke softly, approaching to get a closer look at the pup. Donnie shook his head in disappointed shock before saying the one thing that each brother suspected but neither dare say until that point.

"Someone must've dumped him there. He's too small to have gotten in there himself."

Raph gently ran a hand down the pup's trembling back, the muscles stiffening under the brown fur with fear. "We gotta get him back to the lair."

{*}

The four brothers piled into Donnie's lab silently, and Raph gently moved to put the puppy on the table as Donnie went to check the bloody wound on the his head. The pup squirmed and began yelping once more as Raph held him by the body and Donnie held his head still to check the wound.

"Well, he's had this for a while, since before we found him. Most of the blood's dry, probably a few hours old."

"S-so the sai didn't hit him on the head?"

Donnie looked up at his second oldest brother, at first surprised at the question but then understood. It was no secret that Raph was a sucker for little animals, his love for Spike proved that. And the relief in his brother's voice was too strong to miss.

"No Raph, the sai didn't do this." Donnie comforted, and his brother relaxed immensely. "In fact, the wound doesn't seem too bad. It should heal up in no time, with the proper care. I'm just gonna put something on it to help it heal and wrap it up so he doesn't scratch at it."

All the while, the puppy continued to cry. Mikey wanted to pet him so badly, but every time he approached, the pup would cry louder and start squirming. The youngest brother's baby blue eyes welled up with tears. "Poor little guy! What happened to him?"

The more Donnie looked at the wound as he bandaged it, the more furious he couldn't help but feel. "It looks like someone…kicked him…" and under his breath, he muttered, "Who'd do that to a puppy?"

Raph shifted a bit. "Whoever did this might've also kicked him in the ribs. He keeps flinching funny when I touch him on his side here." He gestured to Donnie the puppy's left side, and as the taller turtle gently prodded the area for broken bones, the puppy shrieked and squirmed, almost falling off the table out of Raph's arms until Leo caught him and gently placed him back on the table and helped Raph hold him still as Donnie tried to feel the pup's ribs through his thick fur.

"What's this?"

The brothers jumped and turned to the door. "Sensei!" Master Splinter approached and looked at the puppy, perplexed. Every brother scrambled to explain.

"H-he was in a trashcan, Master Splinter!"

"Donnie thinks someone kicked him."

"His ribs might be bruised."

"CAN WE KEEP HIM?!"

The three older brothers looked at Mikey, eyes wide but then hopeful as they turned back to their sensei. Splinter watched as the pup trembled between Raph and Leo's hands.

Raph spoke up, repeating his earlier statement now that he wasn't being talked over by his brothers. "He was in a trashcan. Someone hurt him. You'd think that if they didn't want him, that the animal shelter would take him. But what if….no one wants him?"

Splinter spoke gently. "Some people are cruel for the sake of being cruel. I doubt he was even taken to the shelter in the first place." The four brothers went quiet, but the silent plea still hung in the air.

Can we keep him?

The rat master sighed, running a hand down his beard. "A puppy would be more work than Spike. Are the four of you sure you're ready for this responsibility, between your training, the Kraang, and the Foot Clan?"

The four looked at each other, then at the puppy, then back to their sensei. Each gave an affirmative nod. Splinter smiled. "Very well. You may keep him."

"BOOYA-!"

Mikey froze as the pup flinched with a terrified squeak, and finished his celebratory holler in a gentle whisper yell. "-Kasha!"

{*}

The boys had taken to sitting in front of their TV, an episode of Space Heroes playing while Donnie held the puppy, removing and replacing a ice pack on the pup's side every few minutes to ease the bruising. The pup seemed to have accept that they weren't going to hurt him at the moment and the ice pack certainly helped the pain in his ribs, but the fear still stayed and was obvious each time one of them got up for something, earning a swift, terrified glance from the pup each time.

The show ended, and the turtles quietly sat around, watching the puppy. Mikey was smiling so wide his face almost hurt.

"Hey guys! Since we get to keep him, he needs a name! And Dr. Name-enstein knows exactly what to call him!"

"Oh yeah? And what's that?" Raph quipped, slowly reaching to the puppy and gently petting his back, the big brown eyes watching his every move nervously.

"Well, he looks like a little bear, so how about Teddy Bear?! We can call him Bear for short!"

The other brothers looked at each other, stunned. "That's….actually a good name!" Leo said, impressed. Mikey smiled and leaned back with his hands behind his head, cool as a cucumber. "I know."

"Yeah, it suits him!"

"I like it!"

The brothers looked to the puppy, Raph putting his nose up to the pup's nose and gently scratching him under the chin. "What'dya think, lil buddy?"

The puppy sniffed him, then gave him a cautious lick on the nose.

Teddy Bear was now part of the family.

{*}

Hey guys! Thanks for reading! :)

This was intended to be a one-shot at first, but I'm also going to be adding more to this, since this first chapter takes place in the middle of Season 1.

I'm not going to be covering every single episode, but I will be doing my favorites and episodes that include major plots and whatnot.

Please do leave a review and tell me what you think! :D