School has started for me, so updates may be even slower than usual. I truly am sorry about that.
I do not own TMNT.
"How you know April O'Neil?" The boy whirled around, narrowing his eyes in an attempt to pick out the owner of the voice from the shadows. Raph stepped forward, on two legs, into the illuminated street, where his mutant body was on full display. Behind his hockey mask, the boys' eyes widened in shock, taking in the tall, powerfully muscled body, the scaly green skin adorned with rough scars, the large shell with more than one chip. And the eyes, the deep emerald eyes that were so human, yet so feral.
"Whoa, w-what are you?" the skeleton human stammered.
"I ask the questions," growled Raph, pleased with the small level of fear in the skeleton humans' voice. This couldn't possibly be one of the Pain Bringers. With that decision emboldening him, he drew himself up to his full height. "Who are you and what you want with April?"
"The name is Casey Jones," said the human, pulling back some of his bravado. "And who are you to ask?"
"Her family." The boy, Casey Jones, was clearly not expecting that.
"Her-her family?! But you're a-a giant turtle!"
"Know what I am," snapped Raph shortly, stalking forward. "I also know you dangerous. And you search for April. Why? You wish to hurt her? If so, I-"
"No never!" exclaimed the boy. "She's my friend. Do you know where she is?"
"April is safe with us. Has been for many weeks."
"You're one of the friends she's been staying with?" asked Casey, connecting the dots. He chuckled dryly. "Man, she wasn't kidding when she said most people would label you a freak."
Raph growled low in his throat. "April is healthy and happy with us. We take good care of her."
"So you do know where she is." It was not a question, and Raph gave no confirmation. "Well, where is that?"
"Warm and dry underground in Home Lair."
"Lair? Underground?" That sounded just a teeny bit ominous to Casey. "Are you telling me you've been keeping her prisoner?!"
"No. Well, yes. We took her, first, but she stays willingly now. Is content and happy to stay. She is family. We protect. Stop looking for her." Raph turned to leave. The soft clunk of a hockey puck hitting the pavement caught in his ear slits. The mutant turtle twisted to one side, rolling through the air in a kind of half cartwheel as the puck sailed through the air where his head had been a half second earlier. Claws digging into the asphalt, Raph landed, coming up on all fours and slowly straightening to two as he regarded the human.
"Casey Jones doesn't obey the orders of freaks," growled the boy. "Tell me where April is now!"
Raph's eyes narrowed. "No."
"Then I guess I'll just have to beat it out of you," said Casey, readying his hockey stick.
"Good luck with that," replied Raph, flexing his claws.
"Thanks." A second later, Casey was sprinting forward, bringing the hockey stick in a low sweep to take Raph off his feet. The turtle sprang into the air, neatly leaping over the stick and turning to slash at Casey's unprotected back. Casey swung around, just barely catching the deadly claws on the giant glove covering his left hand. Releasing the hockey stick, he punched Raph in the face.
The green eyed mutant snarled in rage and staggered back. Dropping to all fours, he bounded around Casey in a circle. Before the human vigilante could grab his hockey stick again, Raph sprang. The two went down in a mass of limbs and muscle as they rolled, all the while punching and clawing at each other. Raph sank his teeth into Casey's shoulder, but the powerful white daggers were mostly blocked by the padding strapped on over the humans' sweatshirt. Even so, the force of his jaws clamping down caused Casey considerable pain, if his screech was anything to judge by.
Bring back one gloved fist, Casey socked the attacking turtle in the side of the face, at the same time twisting his body. Raphael's grip was lost and he rolled away, shell scraping on the cement of the sidewalk. The two adversaries scrambled to their feet, glaring at one another for only a second before they simultaneously lunged.
"Find any? Find any?" inquired an eager Mikey as he flitted around April. The two of them were searching garbage cans for more comic books.
"Nope, but maybe we'll find some in the next alley," said April. Leo and Donnie were around, searching for food whilst April had opted to assist Mikey in his comic book hunting. April found it easier to eat the food her turtles supplied for her when she still had room to imagine where it had come from.
"Can read comics when we find," said Michaelangelo as they continued their search down another side alley. April didn't have the heart to tell him otherwise; he was so proud of his newfound ability to read the words 'I', 'hero', 'pow', 'save', 'city' and 'wham', so she just nodded.
Crash!
April and Mikey's heads snapped up at the metal-trash-can-being-knocked-over noise, which was followed by a loud thud, some human-speech cursing, another metallic clang and an animalistic snarl.
"What is that?" asked April. No sooner had she asked than Mikey was yelping and taking off down the alley on all fours.
"Raph in trouble! Raph in trouble!"
"Raph's in trouble?" April exclaimed, taking off after the be-freckled mutant.
"Yes! Must help! Hurry!" The turtle tore through the maze of the neighborhood buildings toward the racket. April struggled to keep pace and ended up colliding with Leo and Donnie as the two emerged at a dead, four limbed sprint from another alley.
"Oof!" puffed April as the three of them went down in a matted tangle.
"Sorry," said Leo quickly, jumping to his feet and accelerating back to the four limbed top speed sprint. He vanished into the darkness, headed for the growing-louder thuds, curses and snarls.
"Oh my stars I am so sorry April," said Donnie, checking her over for injuries. "Are you hurt?"
"No, no, I'm fine. Let's just get to Raph," the red haired teen replied. The pair took off.
Mikey and Leo got there first, and the scene they were greeted to was one of mayhem. Raphael and Casey's battle had migrated from the street into a wide alley, leaving a trail of overturned trash cans in their wake. Garbage lay scattered across the pavement. A hockey stick, baseball bat and lacrosse stick lay about as well. Mikey and Leo arrived to see their brother grappling with a lanky human male dressed in black. Raph didn't seem to be needing any help; indeed he had his opponent pinned on his stomach.
"Who that?" asked Mikey.
"Don't know," said Leo. "RAPHAEL!" The green eyed mutant paused to look up.
"What?"
"Oh my god how many of you are there?!" yelled the human as he took in the two new turtle mutants. In raising his head to examine them, Michaelangelo and Leonardo got a look at him.
"SKELETON!" howled Mikey in horror. "PAIN BRINGER!" He staggered back from the battle as thou the human possessed a horrible virus.
"Relax, is human, not Pain Bringer," growled Raph. "Much too weak to be Pain Bringer."
"Well then what the shell do you think you're doing wrestling with him?!" demanded Leo.
"I defend April from stalker," snarled Raph.
"Stalker?!" exclaimed Mikey in horror. Then he frowned. "That bad?"
"Very," growled Leo, narrowing his eyes at the human. "Explain."
"I don't have to explain anything to you freaks," yelled the skeleton dressed boy. And with that, he twisted his body violently, freeing his left hand. Activating a metal contraption hidden beneath the giant glove he wore, the boy punched Raph hard in the side, where there was a strip of flesh running up the turtle's torso that was not protected by either shell or plastron. Raphael screamed as arcs of agonizing electricity powered through him. He dropped to the ground and curled into a twitching ball.
A wordless howl rent the air as Michaelangelo sprang. 100+ pounds of mutant turtle slammed into the black dressed human, bowling him over. The two rolled before the boy flung him off. Mikey's head hit a filled to the brim garbage can and he slumped to the ground, stunned. The boy had no time to recover, however, before Leo tackled him with a savage snarl.
"You will pay for hurting my brothers!" The two grappled furiously before the black clothed human got his legs under the turtle and threw him off like Mikey. He flipped himself to his feet and grabbed a baseball bat, determined to bludgeon the both of them while they were still down.
"Enough!" roared a voice. A very familiar voice. Casey swung around just in time for a garbage can lid to slam into his face. His hockey mask went flying off as he crashed to the ground.
"April?" asked Casey dazedly.
April stiffened, the garbage can lead still clenched in her fists. That voice...could it be? She peered at his face, which was covered in black and white paint. Beside her, Donnie alternated between watching him and her.
"Casey?" the redhead asked slowly.
"That's me," said Casey.
"You know him?" asked Leonardo and Donatello in the same moment.
"Yeah, he went to my school," answered April. Refocusing her icy blue gaze on Casey, she demanded, "now what do you think you're doing attacking my family?"
"The big angry one said they'd been keeping you prisoner," he said.
"Said no thing!" snarled Raph. The green eyed turtle had recovered enough from his encounter with Casey's homemade tazer to stand.
"You did too! You admitted to keeping her in a subterranean lair!"
"Raph!" yelled Leo. "We do not go around telling people we're keeping a human underground with us!"
"When we tell people anything?" asked Mikey groggily. Whatever Leo was going to say to that was frozen in his throat as a light came on in the first floor window of the apartment complex not fifteen feet away.
"Run!" hissed Leonardo, hauling Mikey up. Donnie grabbed April's arm as she and her turtles bolted back the way they'd come.
"Wait!" whisper-yelled Casey, scrambling to his feet and running after them. Donnie guided April through the darkness as they hurried away from the building with the awakened humans. They did not stop until they were nearly two blocks away. This was evidently the place Leo and Donnie had been scavenging, as there were three burlap sacks of foraged goods.
"Let her go!" demanded Casey as he reached them, shoving Donnie hard in the chest. The lanky mutant staggered back and bristled.
"Stop it Casey, they're not hurting me!" said April. "And they're not keeping me prisoner either! Well, not anymore."
"Why are you even staying with them?" asked Casey.
"Because unlike my stupid foster parents, they care for me. They make sure I get enough to eat, that I'm warm enough, that I'm happy," April shook her head, as if clearing some cobwebs away. "Why should I have stayed with Cole and Bea? I was a complete stranger to these guys, but they saw that I was sad, and they took me in. They could have done it without the net, but still, I appreciate everything they've done for me." She twined her arms around Donnie and Mikey's shoulders. "I love them."
"We love you too April," said Mikey, snuggling against her side.
"Guys, meet Casey Jones. Casey, that's Leonardo," said April, pointing to the oldest. "He's the leader. Michaelangelo's the big sweetie here, Donatello's the smart one and Raphael is the big broody one."
"They're all Italian?" asked Casey.
"They had different names when I met them, but they wanted new ones. I got the names from a book on the Italian Renaissance we were reading."
"Dang, April, you always were one odd girl," said Casey, shaking his head.
"We need to head back underground now," said Leo, picking up a bag of scavenged food. "The sun will be up soon."
"You should be getting home before your family notices you're missing," April told Casey.
"Right," he replied, looking at his hidden watch with a wince. "And I still gotta fetch my mask and the gear I lost fighting...Raphael." He'd been about to say something else in the place of the hot heads' name, but thought better of it at the last moment.
"Found no comic books," sighed Mikey dejectedly. Leo fished out a stained bundle of the shiny picture papers. Mikey squealed and grabbed it, jumping up and down in pure joy. "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"
"He really loves comic books," said April to Casey. The vigilante nodded.
Leo removed a manhole cover and the turtles began piling in.
"You live in the sewers?!" exclaimed Casey.
"It's not so bad," said April. "The guys are good at avoiding the really bad places. Our home is real clean and hardly smells at all." She lowered herself into the hole after Leo, Raph and Mikey with a wave. "I'll see you around, Casey."
Donatello was the last turtle to descend into the complete darkness of the sewers. But as he began to climb down the ladder, Casey spoke to him. "In case you have any ideas, April is totally mine buddy."
Donatello paused. His chocolate colored eyes surveyed the human serenely before giving his reply. "Believe that if you wish Casey Jones, but the fact will remain that you are not the one she sleeps with every night."