Friend or Foe?

by NJ7009

When Leonardo is threatened, he must betray his very reason for living to protect his family. He must become a criminal. However, when you are the leader of a group of turtles who fight crime, it is not going to be easy to keep secret. What will happen? Will his brothers find out their leader is now their foe? 2003' Verse.

11. Crime Number Two Part 2

... a friend?

Who was this friend that had sent him the note? Leonardo couldn't guess who and he had little time to ponder the message, he realised. The message said the police were going to be arriving soon and the turtle believed it. Unless he wanted the existence of mutant turtles to be realised, he would need to act fast.

Rounding on his heel, the turtle faced the work benches again. Staring at the image again, he tried his best to memorise it before setting off at a brisk pace. He glanced into a nearby mechanism and searched for the part but found nothing which even resembled the crowbar-like-thing. Anxious, the turtle proceeded on, becoming quicker with his searches and less careful. He had no time for checking every knock and cranny of every device.

By the time he had reached his seventh device, two minutes had struck and desperation seeped into Leonardo's mind again. He had no time to search! The police would be here before long and he couldn't leave with nothing.

Going on to the ninth mechanism, Leo prayed for the part to appear soon and briefly scanned his eyes over the thing before he took a step forward to move on.

Then something caught his eye.

The turtle stopped moving.

Taking two timid steps backwards, Leo looked into the device again and relief seeped into his bones. The turtle then became aware of his shaking form. The piece was right before his eyes, in plain site. The thought of having almost missed it sickened the turtle and he quickly pulled out his katana and firmly placed it in a small gap between the device and the part, for he had no tools to remove it otherwise.

It was as he was using his katana as a prier that Leo's bleeding palm became a problem. He couldn't push the sword down with enough strength one handed. Grimacing, the turtle curled his injured palm around the handle (almost screaming out because of the extreme pain that passed up his arm) and rested a knee on top of his two palms. Breathing deeply, the leader quickly pushed down and, with no small amount of luck, the metal popped out of the mechanism with a creaky spring.

Not a moment too soon either.

Leonardo could now hear sirens in the distance and knew that he needed to escape the crime scene quickly. Bounding out of the window shattered by the pebble, he dissolved into the shadows right as the police lights illuminated the factory.

Success.