The very next night the four of us were stationed about the home of the Senator's wife. We were painted from head to shell in black paint, and had abandoned our more colorful headgear for black.
Don and April were up all night devising little robots called the Birds. Between the Birds, the Bugs, and the Alphabet Soup I was beginning to feel a little bit like I'd stepped into a petshop gone very wrong, but I had to admire their prowess. The two of them had whipped up mobile surveillance devices in the course of a day, which April now controlled from the sort of mission control station she and Don had put together on the same day.
I do not know how ninjas ever got by without high technology.
Please do not tell Master Splinter I said that.
The plan, we'd decided, was to work with the Alphabet Soup if and when the arrived. If not we'd just fight. If they did we'd get their attention, point them towards the enemy, and run interferance while they shot down Foot until they did their Standard Operating Proceedure, which, according to Tom Clancy I think would be to get the target out of the house and into a car and driven somewhere safe. Raph and Mike concurred from their copious viewings of spy, terrorist, and other explosion related movies, and though April was a bit exasperated at our source material, she had to agree it made sense. Master Splinter pointed out it was what bodyguards in ancient Japan would have done so between all that I made the decision.
I was stationed on the roof. I had Don stationed in the tree right outside Nancy White's window, as I figured of all of us he'd be least likely to get a cheap thrill from watching Mrs. White in her nightgown. Raph was stationed on the back deck, on the area we decided was the most likely point of entry for the majority of the Foot, and Mikey was on the side kitchen door, which was the other point of entry we would have picked had we been the murderers and not the protectors.
My job was to help whoever got the largest concentration of fighters. Don was supposed to burst into Mrs. White's window and fend off attackers until the Soup got there, if they did. The one who wasn't at the larger point of entry kept an eye out for the back up assassins.
We were all also armed with headsets that kept us in touch with April. I was feeling good. I was feeling Mission Impossible.
A buzz in my ear: "The Birds have twelve," April said softly. "I see...six on Raph's post, three advancing on Mike's post and...three hanging back, I don't know what they're doing. I can't get a good enough view."
I swung over the roof to land lightly beside Raph. "April, find out if Mikey can handle those on his watch." We could communicate with her but she could only communicate with all of us; we didn't have time to get hyper sophisticated with everything. There was a pause and she said, "He says he's good. Don says he in position."
I took a deep breath and waited. Raph and I didn't look at one another, but I could hear him breathing. Our breathing now matched, a function of having trained together for so long. We waited until the first one cleared the rail of the deck to draw our weapons, and attack.
Now in a fight, you really don't remember everything point for point. Not a real one anyway. You remember moments, brief flashes of it that stand out in your head and define that fight for you forever. It could be really dramatic, like holding the Sword of Tengu over your head and yelling, "Get away from my brothers!" at the top of your lungs (which I happen to think was really cool of me) or as mundane as a roll to the side at the right moment.
What defines this fight for me is when I stood there, back to back with Raph, our chests heaving from the exertion, the Foot ninja on the ground all around us, and April's voice tinny in my ear as she yelled, "Repeat! Get out of there! There's a bomb!"
"Shit!" Raph and I said it at once and dove for the bushes.
Then April yelled, "Donnie!"
I stood up, not sure what I planned on doing, and was blinded as the entire home became an insane conflagration of fire and light. Mike ran up to join us, his mouth open in fear and shock, and the three of us watched Donnie's body hurtle from the fire as if he'd jumped just in time, the innate form of Mrs. White tucked tightly in his arms. They rolled together. He slammed shell first into a tree, and then both of them fell into a heap.
We ran for him. None of us even cared that the remaining foot strolled in front of the flames and brazenly tossed a sword into the dirt in front of the fire bearing the foot symbol.
I suppose it was one way to make sure everyone knew it was the Japanese. I should have known that the Foot wouldn't fight like true warriors. Just dirty assassins.
Mrs. White was unharmed. I disentagled her slowly from Donnie's arms and handed her to Raph. "Get her to the hospital. Make sure they don't register her under her own name."
"Dude, that'll only help their objective!" Mike said, and he sounded really mad.
"Mike, we rescued her. That's what we were here to do," I said as gently as I could. "We don't care about human politics, remember? And I need you to help me get Don back down under so April can help him. He's hurt badly."
I was crying, cursing myself for taking us into things that had nothing to do with us, cursing Raph for bringing us the information in the first place, cursing Donnie for getting hurt, even though I'd virtually assured it by giving him the task that I had. He must have jumped into the room as soon as April warned us about the bomb.
Raph slipped into the shadows with the senator's wife, already gone. Mike and I began carrying Don. As soon as I slipped my shoulder under his arm a gush of warm blood slid down between us. He was already bleeding from his eyes and his mouth and his nose, from places beneath his plastron...I was scared, damn scared. Mike was mumbling under his breath as we carried him. His head lolled back and forth whenever we jostled him, but he never once moaned in pain. Was Michelangelo praying? I hoped he was. I hoped it worked. And I wished in that moment that I knew how to pray like he did. Hoped that he'd been right about everything, because if he was I knew he could ask his new God for help, and his God would answer and everything would be okay.
Author's Notes: Am I over the writer's block hump? I hope I'm over the writer's block hump. It took me awhile to make the decision as to whether or not I was going to write this fight as a blow-by-blow or not. Despite the fact that fighting is a big part of TMNT I decided it wasn't really that central to this story and so decided to stick to the important parts rather than the details, and keep to the jist of the scene. Sorry for the huge wait! Expect the order of the chapters to change at this point, as I can't very well have Don narrating the next one. ;>
Orange Turtle: Yup, I'm slow. It comes from being a perfectionist. It also comes from being a single mom. ;>
Ramica: Heh. I hope Mike can show them. I guess this chapter didn't really work on that, but then, I think maybe that's been driven from their concern too...
Jo Dawn: Heh. When you update it inspires me to update. Its creepy how that happens, JD...
red turtle: You know...I'm not even sure how long this chapter ended up being...but I think I'm outta the woods.