Flash…
The thing clamped its mouth shut, trying not roar into oblivion.
He reached out and turned the dial, the saw spun faster. He had to get past the plastron, that thick plate was cutting all blades he put to it. Another blade went flying into the fall.
Dr. Malkin sighed, "That's the 12th one."
He glanced back at the creature for a long minute before walking up and placing a hand to it's plastron, the dotted line down his plastron was still there. The saw had chipped away enough that the color of the marketed on line had faded to a dark purple but he still hadn't gotten through the bones. The figure jerked and Malkin jumped back. It was coming off of the drug. He walked around the lab table and scooped up a syringe before inserting the glowing green liquid into what he guessed was the arm of the human-like creature.
The being was incredible, as he had discovered the past few days after receiving it from the local military force. Although he still wasn't sure what it was. He glanced back at the circular saw blade sticking the wall and shook his head before sighing. Then, he crossed the room and reached up to pull a wrapped up package away from its resting place on a high shelf.
As the cloth fell away, he smiled deviously, if steel couldn't cut through the bone, then perhaps diamonds would…
"AAAHHH!"
The memory of the scream, woke the doctor from his pain.
"Where's Leo? Don't tell me you brought him here with you," Don begged as they made their way out of the building.
"He's Leo," Raph said.
Don shook his head, "Where is he?" he had a bad feeling about something.
"Don't worry Don he's just-"
"I can't believe I did that."
Don and Raph both turned to find that Mikey had stopped and was staring at his shaking hands.
"Mikey," Raph said sternly, walking forward and taking the trembling hands in his own, "It's ok."
The orange banded turtle jerked away, pulling away his still shaking hands, "NO! IT'S NOT OK! NONE OF THIS HAS BEEN OK!"
Mikey gritted his teeth and leaned back against the wall, letting his hands curl into fists before throwing them into the wall behind him. The wall was metal, so surprisingly, two large dents stared back, revealing the imprint of his hands.
"Mikey," Don tried, speaking very softly.
"I hate this," Mikey growled, "First Leo goes away, then he gets home only to be captured, possibly killed, then we find out he was captured the two years he was gone, then the heart valve. When's it going to stop!"
Dark green hands grabbed him before yanking him roughly away from the wall, "Mikey look at me," Raph ordered.
"And I killed him," Mikey mumbled, his blue eyes finally rising but holding back the moisture in his eyes.
Truthfully, he was more angry than sad, but either way, he was upset.
Raph sighed heavily before pulling his baby brother towards him, "Come on Mike, pull yourself together."
Don opened his mouth to speak but he was cut off by a scream.
"AHHH!"
Their heads snapped towards the doorway at the end of the hallway, the front entrance to the building.
"Hey," Raph thought, "Didn't I leave Leo by that-"
Without another thought, he rushed outside, his younger brothers in tow. The scene before was instantly forgotten when they came across the blood trail that was left on the trunks of the surrounding trees, leading towards what sounded like a waterfall in the distance.
"Let's go!" Raph yelled, rushing ahead of the others, unaware that he was once again taking on that familiar leadership role he never recognized.
When they reached the sight though, each of them felt bile climb up their throats. Being the medic, Don rushed to Leo's side where the eldest was propped up against a tree, breathing heavily and barely conscious.
"I killed him," Mikey thought, "I killed the monster that did this. So why am I still angry?"
Raph threw a thoughtful glance to Mikey's face, who was dead set in anger and when the youngest got angry, people moved. Which is exactly what he did. After assuring himself that his older brother was still alive he finally glanced around, this place seemed familiar. That's when he noticed a tree a few feet from him that had vines laying on the ground around it and there was a large holes in the tree. Then he remembered. He had made that whole when trying to frighten that one lone soldier that Leo had tied up. If that soldier had gotten free, no he couldn't have gone after Leo, the guy was a coward that ran away with his tail between his legs when they had first arrived. That's when he caught sight a gray and black emblem near the edge of the pit trap Leo had pointed out before.
Curious, he walked over and looked down. He had to hold back bile. Seeing some guy shot multiple times was one thing but pit trap earth spikes? They almost seemed like insects, one of the two guys down there was still twitching. He was still alive.
"He's suffering," Raph thought, pulling away from the edge and turning around, "Good."
Raph walked back over to the others, Mikey looked ready to tear someone's head off and Don was whispering quietly to Leo, who was moving his lips but saying nothing in his mostly unconscious state. Raph sighed, at times like this he found himself pacing and he did so then. Unfortunately, he had begun on the third round of walking in a circle when the leaves on a nearby large bush exploded and some kind of shadow flashed before his eyes. He didn't feel the front of the vehicle hit him and he didn't feel the small hands that pulled out of the way of the speeding vehicle.
When Raph reopened his eyes seconds later he found an orange masked face leaning over him, "Raph wake up!"
"Ow," he said, sitting up once he realized he had been lying on the ground, "What was that?"
"GUYS!"
"April over here. Please tell me you have a medical kit," Don yelled out, waving her over.
"Michelangelo," a new voice said.
Mikey spun around, his nunchucks raised for attack when he realized who was behind him. When he did realize this though he whooped in joy, a great contrast to the anger he held before. He threw his arms around Professor, crushing him.
"I-can not-breathe."
"Oops, sorry," Mikey said sheepishly, dropping him.
He couldn't help but let the anger drain away and let his happiness show. April, Don and Professor Perry would make Leo all better while Raph, Casey and he kept them safe and it was just perfect. He never once thought his imagination was too childish to be reality.
"Professor, we need your help," April said, panic rising in her voice that sent everyone to her side where she complained stoutly about the need for breathing room.
Reluctantly, Mikey and Casey hung back away from them while Raph left to fetch his Nightwatcher suit. The cloak that had donned two generations of the Ghost of the Jungle he had scooped up before he had escaped that crazy scientist with Don and Mikey. The brown cloth was now laying over the unconscious turtle, who still leaning against a tree for lack of self support.
The red clad turtle returned promptly, his armor on but carrying his helmet under his arm. Mikey and Casey looked up silently at his return. Raph walked over to the unconscious blue masked turtle, resting a hand on his shoulder for a few seconds before allowing it to slip off. His eyes fell to the dirt and grass covered ground before he took a seat by the youngest turtle and the crazy vigilante they called a friend.
A few minutes passed, the three geniuses still working over the blue clad turtle, using some of hand held machines for…something.
"Alright," Casey said and lifted his hockey mask, "Someone break this silence its killing me."
"What do you want to me to say?" Raph asked, choosing to glare at the ground instead of his…well, one of his best friends.
In the orange banded turtle's mind it felt like this was that moment. The one you could never describe. It was that time you waited to turn the final page of the comic and figure out what happened in the final battle between the superhero and super villain. The moment stretched on forever and there were those times you held out just a second longer to make the surprise all the more satisfying. This was that moment but in reality it was much more than a moment. Thankfully, since his mind was on the hope that everything would be ok again helped him turn away from the weird Dr. creature-like-them-thing. For a moment, Mikey frowned, not in sadness or anger but in curiosity. What had happened to make him that way. He would've asked Don, or April, or Professor Perry, but they were busy and of course he was sitting next to two hot-blooded, animal fighting vigilantes, he wasn't going to bring anything about Dr. Malkin up in Raph's presence.
It was a long strenuous moment that in reality lasted about ten minutes but finally, the troop of geniuses pulled away and when the others caught sight of their leader, he was sleeping with a peace expression on his face.
"So what's the story?" Raph asked, breaking the second awkward silence that followed.
Don glanced in-between April and the Professor before he sighed and stood up, "The heart valve's not functioning, he can survive about an hour with what remains but-"
"There's no way we can get him home in an hour," Raph said, finishing the sentence.
"Oh, it wouldn't matter if we got him home without a replacement or substitution for that heart valve he'd die anyway," Don said, breathing heavily and placing his aching head against the trunk of the tree Leo still slept at the base of.
"And I'm guessing we could get that machine," April said sadly.
"Wait!" Mikey yelled, unexpectedly finding the obvious solution, "Dude the machine is here. That's why the Proffsor's here. Isn't it?"
The skinny scientist nodded, "The facility they delivered it to lays right here in this jungle. Dr. Malkin should have it secured."
"Dr. Malkin," the turtles whispered.
They looked at each other.
"Who wants to tell him?" Don said, obviously not wanting to be the one to do it.
"Dr. Malkin's the one who caused this in the first place," Raph said, going with his usual strategy of a direct approach to all subjects, "He's the one who experimented on Leo, this is his fault. The guy's gone mad."
"Dr. Malkin," April breathed, "He was the one who survived the ship sinking here."
"You seen him?" Raph asked, shocked.
"Well, no. When I was down searching for any remnants of those stone warriors Max Winters wanted me to find, I met a group of soldiers who told me about him and where to find him. He was supposed to be in a small house near the jungle. He had found an artifact that had symbols close to the ones we found on that stone disk in your shell Raph."
The red clad turtle reached back and ran a thoughtful hand over the crack in his shell. It was nearly healed but still he remembered. He would always remember.
"This was after the Stone Generals right?" Mikey asked.
April sighed, "Obviously Mikey. He wasn't home, but his laptop was sitting on a far table. I thought I would just look, not bother his personal files, just see if it had any information on that artifact. That's when I found a bunch of strange experiments on animals and the horrible reports. When I came upon those files on Leo, I was shocked. I thought I been imagining things but…then I printed them out from some old broken down printer sitting on the floor near the one window. When I got over there to get the papers and make sure they were real, I saw someone walking up the pathway. I ran to the computer deleted the files, along with some others, accidentally and slipped out a back window."
Here April sighed and leaned against the parked vehicle, "Then I jumped on a plane and got home ASAP, which is when you guys first learned of all this, but those experiments…he was mad."
"That he was," Don agreed before glancing down at Leo.
"Guys listen to me!" Mikey yelled, his face crumbling into rare anger once again, "We've got there geniuses, a dieing brother, one hour, a clean facility and the machine to save his life about 100 steps in that direction!" he yelled pointing along the dried blood trail against the trees, "What are we waiting for!"
"The twerp's right, we need to go now. Enough chit chat," Raph said, slipping his helmet on, "Don, April, Professor get Leo on the truck and follow us, Casey stay with them and protect them. There's a chance we'll be meeting some unfriendly faces when we get back there. Mikey, you're with me."
"Yes Fearless Leader," Mikey mumbled under his breath.
"What was that Mikey!"
"Guys just get a move on," Don ordered.
"I'll smack you later," Raph grumbled, "Hey give me Leo's cloak. Here Mikey."
The youngest stared at the cloth like it was the inner core of galactic space ship.
"You wear it idiot," Raph said as he watched the others push the vehicle back so they could follow them.
"But why?'
"Because the guys here are cowards. They'll take one look at the Ghost of the Jungle and throw themselves off a cliff."
"WOW! COOL!"
With that Mikey donned the cloak and the two took off, the sound of an engine following close behind them.
"Let me go out first," Raph said, motioning for Mikey to fall back some in their run.
"But why?" Mikey whined, "That's totally unfair, you'll swamp everyone before I get a chance."
"Because I'm the one in armor idiot."
"Ohhhhhh, I get it."
Ok I know I promised to explain what happened to make Dr. Malkin look like he does but I've had to readjust the chapters. So that part I had to put in the next chapter.
Oh by the way Alrighter, if you're reading this, I've got an idea for that one-shot request, what if I put your request in this story? I'll make sure to make it big. A huge, dramatic scene, just don't tell anyone it would ruin the ending. If so, then count the entire story as a gift to you.
Read and Review please! Because you all rock! Especially those that review!
~Moonsetta
