Disclaimer: I own them… Yes, I'm being sarcastic… Can't you take a joke?

Author Notes: Well, it's been awhile but I think I remember where I was going with this story. Maybe… probably not… anyway, I'm boldly going forward with no idea of where I was planning on ending up in the first place so please give me a little slack. Now it's time for one of those awkward transitional chapters that helps to set the stage for the rest of the story.

Some minor edits were done to the previous two chapters but nothing earth shattering. Some references have been added at the end of the chapter just in case people were confused/curious.

A Most Deadly Game

Chapter 3: Into the Forest

He sighed and shifted in his sleep, moving around and getting comfortable again. His blankets were very warm and the mattress seemed extra soft. Except for that one spring sticking up into his side but that could be ignored like it always was. He didn't have anything to do or to think about at the moment and that was alright by him. It was so nice to have a sleep in for once that he wasn't even going to question why Klunk wasn't curled up next to him, or why he was being allowed to sleep through morning training, or why someone had opened the curtains in his bedroom and the sunlight was currently burning through his eyelids and ruining his sleepiness.

That was what tipped Michelangelo off to the fact that there was something wrong with his situation. If there was no Klunk and if there was sunlight then he was out at Casey's grandmother's place but he didn't remember driving out there. Then he remembered Casey saying something about that place undergoing major renovations so how could he be there when there were contractor's crawling all over the place? More importantly, Sensei had never let anyone sleep through morning practice unless they were injured or sick and he wasn't either of those. Last he checked anyways.

With the urgency that he knew he was in trouble, Mikey tried to wake up. The keyword was tried. Something was keeping him asleep, most likely a drug that Donnie would be able to list off the top of his head without even thinking. His limbs felt stiff and heavy and every time he tried to move he couldn't seem to make his body due more than shift about. He was defenseless, outside, and, as far as he could tell, alone. The good thing was that it meant his captors weren't anywhere nearby. The bad news was that his brother's weren't there either.

He whimpered as he tried to force his eyes open. It took everything he had to open his eyes and even then all he could see was bright sunlight and blurry green patches all around him. He let his eyes close as they had begun to burn from the intensity of the light. He was in a lot of trouble and his brothers were in just as much or even more so. He remembered the unprovoked attack on the rooftops and collapsing after he had been hit with some kind of dart. Now he was outside and alone.

He had to find his brothers but first he had to wake up and get up. In a surge of determination, Michelangelo snapped open his eyes and, ignoring the blurriness around him, rolled off his side and up onto his feet. He only managed to make it halfway up right before the dizziness caught up to him and, in an interesting zigzag maneuver, stumbled left then right before tilting over completely and ending up face first on the ground again, plowing up a small furrow of dirt with his forehead. At least the coolness of the dirt was helping to ease his aching head and with a small sigh he huffed to himself.

"Dude… this just isn't going to be a good day…dirt shouldn't be this comfortable…"

-Break-

He was going to kill them. End of story. He was going to find them and rip them apart with his bare hands regardless of what Sensei said about fighting honorably. He was going to sneak in and throttle them in their sleep. If they could fight back, he would make their beatings even more painfully, taking them apart piece by piece until they finally succumbed to their injuries. Yes, they were going to pay. Pay in blood. Pay with their lives as long as he had anything to say about it. No one -and that meant everyone in the galaxy, other dimensions or other countries- would get away with kidnapping and hurting his brothers.

A branch off some kind of tropical bushy plant felt his wrath as he slashed out at it with the tip of his sai. The branch was snapped off and fell to the ground with a small but rather satisfying plop. He really wished it was someone's head. Particularly one of the guys who attacked and drugged him and his brothers before carting them off to who knew where for whatever psychotic purpose they had managed to come up with. Yes, he was going to kill them but first he had to wait for the rest of this drug to work its way out of his system.

Leaning heavily back against a tree, seething as he waited as patiently as possible, Raphael had the look of the deranged as he gritted his teeth and growled lowly to himself. As soon as he could move he was going to find his brothers and make sure that they were alright. Then he was going to find who had kidnapped them and make them wish that they had thought of anything but kidnapping four humanoid turtles, especially when one had the taste for violent revenge. He gripped the handles of his sias a little tighter. Yes, there was going to be some serious shell to pay.

Moving slowly and ready to fall back against the tree in case he was still to dizzy to walk, Raph shifted more of his weight onto his feet. A grin of triumph spread across his face as he stood on his own. He was still a little wobbly when he took his first step forward but that should soon wear off. Now that he was standing and almost ready to bust some heads, it was time to find their path and that would also help him to get his feet back under him.

Raphael was not the best tracker in the world but he knew enough to get by. Three men had brought him here and left him on his side. They had covered their tracks well, physically hiding them with branches and possibly even dragging something behind them to masks their tracks in the soft soil. The trick would have worked had they thought to cover their tracks more than fifteen feet from where they left him. He crouched low as he examined the heavy tread on the boot. It almost appeared military but looked nothing like the particular tread that were on Agent Bishop's lackeys. They looked more like the tread on an army boot. Staying where he was, Raphael lifted his head as his eyes followed the tracks off into the bushes.

He smiled as he started to follow the tracks, twirling his sais in anticipation. Grounding out a quiet, "You punks are so going to get it when I catch up to you," as he slipped off through the trees.

-Break-

Despite the fear for his family and the desire to know why he was kidnapped and brought to this forest, Donatello couldn't help but stare around at the foliage, sunshine, various flowers and vines. Bird calls that he had only ever read about or heard from online sources and documentaries echoed loudly through the tree canopy above him. This was an experience that he had only ever dreamed about.

However, it came with its own amount of dangers as well. Dangers he doubted that his brother even knew about. Regardless of why they were kidnapped and brought here -which he doubted was for a good reason- the rainforest that he at least was in had its own amount of dangers and pitfalls that he had to keep an eye out for. At least he could only hope that his brothers were somewhere nearby.

Donatello frowned at that, his brothers could be anywhere, there was no grantee that they had been left to their own devices in this rainforest like he was. As far as he could tell he had been given some kind of modified xylazine or perhaps sucostrin on the roof top back in New York and during their trip to wherever here was. If their abductors had continued to administer them then they could keep his brothers unconscious for several days, up to a week if they hooked them up to an IV providing both fluids and nutrients. Donatello looked over his arms and at the back of his hands but didn't see any kind of puncture marks. They hadn't hooked him up to an IV as far as he could tell.

That meant that the headache he had was only partially due to the remnants of the drug in his system. He was dehydrated. His stomach took that moment to rumble at him. Water was more important that food at the moment so, cautiously, Donatello started into the trees, alert for any kind of surprises from either the forest itself or from whomever had brought him there.

He could only hope that his brothers were somewhere in the rainforest too and that they kept their heads about them as they moved through the forest. Until he found them and warned them, they were on their own and if they weren't in the rainforest… Donatello sighed. He would have to cross that bridge when he came to it. There wasn't much he could to until then except keep himself alive as he searched for them.

Movement on a large leaf to his left caught his attention and Donatello froze when he saw the small brightly colored frog staring at him. The bright blue and black spotted frog was barely an inch long but Donatello felt like he was staring down the maw of an angry lion. Slowly, he brought his hands up and stepped away from the deceptively harmless frog. "It's okay little guy," he murmured more to himself than the frog. "I'm not going to hurt you."

The frog just continued to watch him, unmoving.

When he was sure that he was out of the frog's range, Donatello finally turned away from him. He let out a breath that he hadn't realized that he had been holding in. That had been close. Though he didn't know much about the various breeds of poison dart frogs, he knew enough to not touch them, despite their beauty. Some breeds could kill ten to twenty men and he was pretty sure he wasn't immune to their toxin.

-Break-

He had forgotten how much of a challenge it had been to move through the jungle.

Where the city had harsh angles with conveniently placed architecture that rarely crumbled in his hands or under his feet, the jungle was alive. There was nothing convenient about the placement of certain branches and the moss that seemed to grow on everything made placement of his feet critical when he landed. A wet metal roof in the middle of a downpour was easier to land on than a branch covered in moss even if there was no rain. The thin layer of plant life was a twisted ankle just waiting to happen.

Things also broke very easily. His hands would tear up bark as his grabbed at branches. The rot was sometimes severe enough that the wood would crumple beneath his fingers and he would be in free fall for a few moments before he could catch onto another branch. Vines were never very trust worthy, breaking from his weight alone as he tried to swing from them, and were avoided at all costs. He would take his time jumping from tree limb to tree limb rather than grabbing a vine and plunging to the ground as if he hadn't grabbed anything.

He had also forgotten how much of a thrill it was.

It was like katas, the grace and finesse was the control for the strength and speed as you moved through the poses. The city was where strength and speed came into play more than the finesse. Leaping from rooftop to rooftop was dangerous, but with enough speed on your side and timing your jumps just right, you would never fall. In the jungle, it was constantly twisting and turning, flipping through the tree limbs. Your mind was always three steps ahead of where your body was and an alternate route was always sought after as well. It was a test of finesse and endurance in ways the city never could.

Leonardo had forgotten how much he loved moving through the trees.

He grabbed the branch with both hands, kicking his feet underneath it and up quickly to gain the momentum he needed. He let go of the branch as his hands slid on the rough bark and he neatly tucked into a roll as he fell six feet and landed on a branch, careful of the moss layering it. He didn't stop, leaning forward and pushing off from the branch, angling himself so that he could land on the tree trunk, briefly ignoring gravity as he was horizontal to the ground, before pushing off again. Twisting himself upward using another branch as a pivot point, he ran along the branch he landed on and right up the tree's trunk, grabbing at limbs and pulling himself upward.

He pulled himself upward, hopping from limb to limb as he continued to scale the tree he was on. Leaves were brushed off to the side as he went, barely giving them more than a passing thought as he continued his ascent determined to get to the top. Leonardo slowed as the branches and leaves became thinner and he could feel the ancient tree he was climbing sway slightly with his added weight.

Finding a relatively sturdy looking branch for being this close to the top of the tree, Leonardo perched on it with one hand against the tree's trunk to help him keep his balance as he looked around at the view. Trees were in even direction, at times so thick that it was impossible to tell where the trees' trunks were. Off in the distance, the sun was beginning to set, sending out a combination of yellows and reds to bathe the horizon.

Leonardo sighed as he looked out over the forest. There was nothing that he could see to lead him to his brothers. Though he doubted that any of them would do anything to draw attention to themselves in such a situation. They were probably lying low, searching for each other. This was going to be like trying to find three moving needles in a hay barn.

His eyes were drawn back to the horizon and he glared at it. Thorne would soon be sending out his collection of hunters and with their numbers they could practically sweep the whole basin in one go. How long could his brothers remain hidden before they were found? And what about them in the jungle? Donnie was probably the only one who would even have a clue about all the hidden dangers lurking in the forest but Mikey and Raph would either not know or be too head strong to actually think about it.

He stood up, wobbling slightly as he looked around the tree he was in again. He had no idea what he had hoped to accomplish climbing up here. Maybe he just needed to see the vast expanse of land he had to cover to find them. It was daunting but the thought of them, out there alone, being hunted like animals caused the rage that he had first left his family to cleanse came back with a vengeance.

No one hurt or threatened his family.

He leapt off of the tree, shoving his rage to the back of his mind as he focused all his energy into the rapid descant down the tree flipping, tucking and rolling from branch to branch in a choreographed looking fall. When his controlled fall led him deep enough into the canopy to have more options for ways to move forward he did so. As he moved through the canopy, he made a mental list of what he needed to accomplish. First and foremost, he had to find and protect his family.

Then he would deal with Thorne.

-Break-

Vincent stepped out onto the veranda, idly holding his glass in one hand as he walked up to the waist high railing that went around the deck. He stared up into the soft red and yellow hues of the sunset. It was almost time for the Hunt to begin.

"Mister Thorne."

He turned to regard his secretary, taking a long moment to appreciate the lithe form before him as he took another sip of his glass. Her suit wasn't nearly as expensive as his but it highlighted her curves nicely, showing off her assets without being vulgar. The charcoal pencil skirt and matching blazing were highlighted with the bright red camisole, lipstick and pumps that she wore. She idly took her black rimmed glasses off, tossing her head slightly to exaggerate their removal as he watched. With her blonde hair up in a perfect bun, the affect was diminished but not completely destroyed.

"Yes Lisa?" he said already having a fairly good idea of what she was going to say.

"It is nearly time for the hunters to prepare to leave. Is there anything you would like to say to them before they head out?"

He shook his head, glancing back at the rapidly diminished sun as it fell further below the horizon. There was nothing more that he needed to say to them. They knew their mission. Hunt down the Ghost and his kin and bring their bodies to him either alive or dead. They would either complete their contract with him or, if they failed, his own militia would deal with them. Failure was not tolerated in his home.

She dipped her head in acknowledgement before putting her glasses back on as she turned to reenter his office. His eyes flickered over her again before noticing something amiss. "Lisa," he said in a quiet voice. His obedient secretary turned to him again and awaited instruction. He took a moment to remind himself that her obedience was the reason why he had hired her in the first place and this was a minor altercation that just needed to be corrected. It was not enough to have her permanently dismissed over. It would take too long to find someone as methodically and willing as her.

"I bought you a pair of Christian Louboutin's to wear while you are in my employment," he nodded his head at her feet causing her to look down at them. "If I ever see another brand on your feet again, I will have your contract terminated."

Her eyes widened as her head snapped up to look at him fearfully, knowing full well what a terminate contract entailed. She regained her composure quickly, pulling herself together to manage a shaky, "Yes, Mister Thorne."

He turned back towards the view, dismissing her, and idly wondered how long he would have to wait for the Ghost's broken body to be lying on the floor of the front lobby.

References:
xylazine and sucostrin – big game tranquilizers typical used on elks and deer
Christian Louboutin – expensive shoe line with prices ranging from $650 - $3,000+