Disclaimer If I owned them I could afford not to….. nope I would still eat Kraft Dinner.

Yukio87: How's about instead of warm milk, a purple Russian. I think I came up with it, haven't heard anyone else doing it. Hot chocolate with a shot of black cherry vodka, that'll settle your nerves.

LeonardotheLeader: Aw shucks.

Sav: Meh, still can't sleep tonight ssoooo…

Loral: Thanks!

Tmntleonardo19: Thankyou! This fast enough for yah?

Never let it be said that Leonardo Hamato was a quitter. Just because he'd never make it in the jungle didn't mean some other opportunity would never come his way. With that slim hope still alive he fell back on his training. His entire life had been spent training and conditioning his body, pushing to and creating new limits, and that's what he did now. Days were spent sleeping and studying his surroundings. Nights went to building strength in his wounded leg. First he virtually had to learn to walk again, muscles had to shift to support his weight in new ways. It was very painful and slow work. Not to mention he'd been put on a purely vegetarian diet, which while workable, was missing the protein he so badly needed to heal and build new muscle. He lost weight, but eventually he was mobile again, albeit with a serious limp. A walking stick would have been nice, but not an option for an "animal".

Meanwhile, things were changing in the camp. Where there had just been one small shelter and a line of kennels, there were now several buildings, many vehicles and many more men. It seems that the group he'd originally stumbled on were just the beginning of a new operation. This was both good and bad for the captive terrapin. On the one hand, more people meant more eyes he had to convince he was just a critter, and some of the new guys weren't as animal friendly as the first group. On the other hand, more vehicles, therefore more opportunities to escape. He wouldn't be able to run away, but driving away was still on the table. Once he was confident of his ability to get a jeep and disable the others he was going straight home, time limits be damned. One glance at his leg and Splinter would forgive him for sure, if he was early at all. Leo had lost count of the days during the time he was sick.

To pass the time he'd started naming the people. The first man, who was kind, he called Keeper, then there was Doc, not original, but apt. Then there was Cook, Mech, the mechanic and Boss. The farmers themselves never had anything to do with him, other than staring once in awhile and just went about their business efficiently, so he dubbed them The Collective, Donnie would love that one. Finally there was The Jerks. He had several individual names for them, varying in vulagarity depending on their cruelty. Apparently they bored easily, and one way they entertained themselves was picking on either other people or the animals. Leo was usually the last resort as Boss and Keeper generally kept them away, but sometimes at night if they were on guard duty they came knocking on his door. Often literally. They would bang on his cage, poke him with sticks to see him growl, throw rocks and rotten food at him, they would even relieve themselves in his direction.

One night, Leonardo'd had enough. One of the worst of them, the name in Leo's mind such a filthy Japanese term even thinking it made young turtle blush, was using the other's target practice to cover a little target practice of his own. Leo was reminded of old westerns when black hats would make people "dance". At least the moron had decent aim, every shot came within inches of Leonardo but he had yet to be touched by anything but small pieces of shrapnel. He didn't dare hide in the dog house, if the man couldn't see him clearly, the chances of being hit would be far greater, so he acted on another plan. The next time the man shot Leo yelped and curled in a ball as though injured. For all their bluster, the Jerks had never actually harmed him, they knew that Boss and Keeper had designated him a sort of camp mascot and valued this strange creature they'd found in the rain forest. So when he thought he'd hit the rare animal, the man panicked. He threw open the door to check and see if it was still alive, only to be met with 150lbs of raging turtle. The oily man's screams finally drew some attention and soon several others were pulling the spitting reptile off of him. Leonardo was unceremoniously dumped back in his kennel and Doc started treating the trigger happy idiot. He was fairly well mauled. Leo had decided to take every advantage and stopped trimming his nails after he was caught. The result was a decent set of claws. It didn't take the others long to figure out what had happened, if the fact that that particular moron no longer bothered Leo was any indication. As for the other Jerks, they seemed to gain a little more respect for the crippled reptile and kept their distance, all the better in Leo's mind. It meant he was left in peace to build his strength more and plan. But that changed, when the helicopter came.