"Michelangelo!"
Splinter's sharp hiss broke the turtle from the statue he'd turned into. "Work on that window, quickly! If it will not open, you must find something to break it."
"What are you-"
"Go!" The rat ran for the door, tensing while he listened for what was happening on the other side.
Michelangelo whipped back toward the window, and found that he could barely reach the pane from the floor. He looked around desperately for something to stand on, and a chair pushed up against a desk in the corner seemed like an obvious choice.
He received a wary glance from his Sensei while retrieving it, but his father said nothing. Mike knew Splinter was gearing up for another fight, but if there were a bunch more guns coming, he hoped they could just all sneak out.
By the time he was rolling the chair into position, the girl was sniffing again.
"What's going on?" Samantha asked.
"We're getting out," he assured her. "It's okay. The operator said it wouldn't take the cops that long to get here." I hope.
The turtle pushed the chair against the window, but found wheels shifting the moment he clamored on top. Reaching backward, he caught Keith by the shoulder and directed the boy closer to the chair.
"Here. Just keep your weight against this thing, okay?"
"What am I doing?" The teen's voice was muffled by the coat over his head.
"Stand right there, and don't move," Mike instructed.
Then he shifted his weight forward to examine the window, fiddling with the locks on either end of it. Michelangelo pressed the glass from several different angles, but couldn't get it to budge an inch.
With a grunt of frustration he slammed both hands against the window, and heard a startling crack. The sound didn't come from the glass, but over his shoulder. Mike sent a harried glance across the room, just in time to watch the door click quietly shut.
The turtle wanted to run after his father, but the two bound and blinded teenagers standing near him demanded attention first. He leaped over the side of the chair to the ground with increasing haste.
Panic almost overtook him, before he realized exactly what he needed to do.
"Hey. Keith, dude, I need your help with something. Keep your hands still, because I'm turning you loose."
"You are?"
"Yeah, but listen, okay? My dad and I, we risked our butts for you, big time. He just ran off to give us more time to get out. So you owe him for this. You can't try to see me when I cut that zip-tie off, and you can't stay around here. You need to help me, and then I'll make sure you're both out the window. After that, run as fast as you can. But don't take the hood off until I say you can. Deal?" The speech spilled from his tongue so fast he wasn't sure if the teen understood him.
"I'll do it, whatever you want, kid! Just get us the hell out of here!"
"We have to do this part together. Hold still first."
Using his pocket knife, Michelangelo cleanly cut through the zip-tie on his wrists and guided his hands to the back of the chair. The sound of multiple cries in the background didn't bother Mike since none of them belonged to his father, but he still wanted to get to him as quickly as possible.
"Grab the chair and hold on. I'm taking the bottom of it. We're gonna lift and swing, but you have to follow my lead."
The clueless boy lifted his end, and Mike quickly demonstrated the direction the chair needed to go.
"Okay, so I'm picking up my side. When I count to three, swing and release, got it?"
"Yeah!"
Michelangelo hefted the wheels off the floor and helped angle the chair into position, then counted down for them. The turtle bent backward away from the glass that shattered upon contact, yanking the young man with him.
There was no time for hesitation when the deed was done. The turtle lunged to his feet and seized Samantha by the arm.
"C'mon, c'mon, I'll give you a boost out, but...actually, your friend should probably go first."
Mike gave Keith a push toward the window and got behind him with a deep breath. "You need your eyes for this part. Keep your head forward, and I'm trusting you not to look back. Promise?"
His vigorous nod under the coat made the turtle reach to pull it off of him.
"Get out," he ordered.
The youth scrambled up and over the ledge, landing with a grunt on the other side. Michelangelo moved away from the window, not completely trusting the boy to keep his word.
"I'm gonna cut you loose," he told the girl. "Don't move the blindfold. I'll give ya a boost, and your friend can help on the other side. Then you gotta run, and maybe not break into anymore warehouses."
"Keith's cousin let us in," she exclaimed.
"Yeah, but if you hadn't been here, those Crypts wouldn't have tried to eat ya for lunch. Remember that, okay?"
"Okay," she said faintly. "Thanks, Michelangelo."
He stiffened at her use of his name, but shrugged it off. Then he cut through the zip-tie binding her hands, and directed her carefully toward the window.
"Feel ahead of you. There's a ledge. I'll help you up, and your buddy can catch you. Got that, Keith?"
The teen avoided his sight, but Mike heard him cry out in the background.
"I see lights! The cops are coming!"
"Awesome! Get Sam down, and go meet 'em. Stay out of trouble, you two!"
"But-"
Michelangelo didn't wait to hear the rest of what Samantha was going to say. He ran across the space and burst through the door, not caring who heard. He found the floor littered with thugs in various positions, neither moving nor bound.
Doesn't matter now that the cops are here, except for how much easier it is to see us with the lights on!
A nearby thwack drew him back to the battle in progress. Michelangelo followed the sound down the hallway, where it forked off in another direction. The opposite end was shrouded in darkness, and Mike guessed the shards of a light fixture covering the floor had something to do with it.
Indistinct shapes were huddled near what appeared to be a dead end in the short distance. It was hard to count people, though the lithe shadow of his father careening through the group was impossible to mistake. The rat was more agile and skilled than anyone he was up against, but the pulsing teens had locked arms to make it harder to pick them off one-by-one.
Without a second thought, the turtle backed up to build momentum, and took a running leap toward the group. In four swift strides he horizontally dashed across the side of the wall right by the gang bangers' heads, and landed on the other side by his father.
"Watashi wa jikkō suru tame ni anata ni iimashita!" Splinter's use of Japanese that time resounded like the crack of a whip, and Michelangelo was glad he didn't catch all of it.
"I got those kids out," he told him, and continued quieter. "The cops are here. We gotta move too."
Michelangelo ducked under the blow of a pipe, but did nothing to interrupt the swing from crashing into the wall. "Nice hit, dude! Why don't you give it another shot?"
The turtle edged closer to another opponent, tempting the pipe man to chase him. When his attacker closed in, Mike dropped straight to the ground so that hollow metal clobbered his friend instead of the turtle.
"Hey, thanks! Nice to have someone else on our side."
"Michelangelo, get out of here this instant!" Splinter yelled in the background.
Mike rolled between the legs of pipe-boy, who spun wildly to try and hit him again. The teen whacked two more of his companions, leaving the nine-year-old on the verge if hysteria.
"You're doing great, man!" he encouraged. "Seriously, keep going and this mess will be cleaned up in no time!"
The pipe sang a little closer to his head on the next attempt, but Michelangelo's chortle never faltered.
"You wanna play chase? I love follow the leader too. C'mon, come and get me!"
Mike shouldered between two youth, diving forward to avoid follow-up blows from the pipe. Laughter was impossible to contain, until familiar hands caught him by the shell and dragged him to his feet.
"Up, musuko, move!"
Splinter shoved him so hard that he almost lost his footing. He heard the enraged bellow of the pipe-wielder pursuing them, and got to watch his father's back kick catch the man squarely in the chin.
"See that, dude? Ya only need one good hit!" the turtle bragged.
Splinter's hand seized his shell so tightly, Mike thought he was going to shake him.
"Michelangelo, this is not a game!"
'I know, Sensei, but did you see that guy? He probably took out five of his buddies by himself! I didn't even have to do anything."
"I prefer that to you being injured, but I still expect you to do what I say!"
"I couldn't leave you, Master! You're all I've got. We gotta get out now, don't we?'
Splinter was currently directing him at top speed across the fully lit warehouses, whereas Mike expected him to head back for the window.
"No," he answered surprisingly. "We cannot leave."
"What?" The statement was so startling, Mike stopped dead.
His Sensei literally snatched him off the ground to keep going. "Quickly, my son! We dare not wait here! You said those police have come."
"Yeah, but why aren't we leaving like the kids?"
"Be still a little longer, and I will explain! We must get back into hiding first."
"You mean the vent?" he squeaked.
Splinter groaned, but didn't offer another solution. So it was, the pair ended up returning exactly the way they'd come about thirty minutes beforehand. His father's hands never left his shoulders, as if Mike would try to stop if he let go.
It wasn't until they were back behind the door of the original office and slowly crawling through the familiar vent that the rat chose to speak again.
"Michelangelo, the young men I just faced, I heard them speak of the News before we fought. The phone call you made has been replayed at least a dozen times over broadcasts. Do you know what that means?"
"The guys probably saw it?"
"It means they are likely trying to find their own way here, if your own stubbornness is any indication. After this incident, there is no doubt the police will watch the warehouse closer. We have little choice now, but to wait for them to come to us. If we leave, I do not know how we will be reunited."
Splinter's frustration was clear, but inwardly, Michelangelo was excited. His brothers would come, and they would be waiting for them.
Remaining in a crouch was intensely difficult for Donatello. He wanted to dive into the pages of material he'd printed off the computer, but was currently stuck waiting on the roof with Leonardo. At least, until Raph chooses to show up. Don was grateful to his red-masked brother's for volunteering on distraction status, but now he was ready to leave.
A sidelong glance of the teen beside him confirmed that Leo wasn't feeling patient either. A low growl under the blue-masked turtle's breath left Donny more concerned about him possibly losing his cool.
"Bro, please don't get mad at him," Don requested. "We have to work together. That'll be harder to do if you tick Raph off."
"Yet he doesn't care if he ticks me off." Leo huffed.
"You have more control than him. You're older and more responsible." Donny was grasping at straws, anything that could help stifle the fury he knew was growing. "You said you had to look out for us. That includes when Raph is rash and impetuous, doesn't it?"
Leonardo snorted. "You mean when he's being himself?"
"Please, Leo, don't-"
The flash of a shadow on the wall to Donatello's left made him spin with a start. Fingers grasped the bo staff he trained with, but rarely carried on trips to the surface. Leo was the one who'd advised him to bring it tonight, though the purple-masked turtle hoped it wouldn't be necessary to use.
He heard the sound of a katana partially being drawn, but Raphael finished dropping over the ledge before Leonardo had the sword in hand.
The blue-masked turtle immediately scowled. "You came from the wrong direction and you're late. What happened to the timeline?"
Raphael offered a casual smirk. "Ya missed lecturing me that much, Leo? You coulda practiced on Donny while I was gone."
"Forget it," Leonardo declared. "I don't even want to know what you just did; we need to move."
Raph's arms crossed with irritation. "You're welcome for getting that guy outta there. And for running my shell off for forty-five minutes so the genius could play on the dumb computer."
"I didn't want you to go!" Leo retorted, fists clenched at his sides.
Donny took that as a cue to get between them. "Now that's enough," the ten-year-old insisted. Having real evidence to follow made him feel a little bolder. "The important thing is, I have what we need, and everyone is safe. You guys promised you wouldn't do this. Am I supposed to track Master Splinter and Mike down without you?"
Raph made a scoffing sound. "Are you out of your mind, Donny? You ain't going anywhere alone."
"I'm the one with information," he reminded him. "I'll ditch both your shells if I have to."
"No one is ditching anyone," Leonardo said quieter, then focused on Raphael. "I'm glad you're okay."
"Shell, Leo," the red-masked turtle grumbled. "I'm not gonna get myself killed just 'cause I leave your sight."
"I would still rather agree together on a course of action before it's taken," Leo replied evenly. "That's all I'm saying."
"Ya don't wanna agree on anything," Raphael countered louder. "You want to give the orders, and if someone doesn't do what y' say-"
Donatello didn't stay to hear the rest. He made a split second decision to jump over the ledge of the building, and disappeared into the darkness on the opposite side. Instead of running across the property, he dodged around the far end of a cooling unit, and buried himself in the center of surrounding equipment.
He heard his brothers' light footfalls a few seconds later, but didn't move as he sensed them going by. Donny stretched for his flashlight instead, and clicked it on to begin sifting through pages he'd printed off.
Reproducing the itinerary of every ship in the network was faster than searching for the exact boat they would need to take. It also meant there was a lot of material to get through, and the idea of allowing his brothers to run off some aggression while he focused on more pressing matters was appealing.
Okay, so...some of the original itineraries are moot now. Things got rearranged after Freight Forwarding was shut down. It doesn't even matter where they're rerouting the crap, to be honest. What I have to do is find the next closest candidate to our goal, and then figure out how to get to the warehouse from there.
Darn it, this would be so much easier if I had a computer to narrow things down from this list and map it all out. I suppose I could backtrack to the library, but we're already here and the harbor is so close...Leaving doesn't make any sense. I could take another shot at Reid's too, but Leo will chew my shell out if I go in alone.
Don spread out a couple layers of pages and began skimming rapidly. I think most of this stuff is irrelevant for what we need to do. Only a few of these ships addressed the recall to begin with, and everything else is business as usual, being sent God knows where...
He squinted harder at the paper beneath his fingers and sighed. No, this one looks like it followed the original plan. There's mention of Freight Forwarding right there. I just need to find a boat heading the same direction so-
A twinge in his gut was the only warning Donny had before hands closed around his legs and dragged him out from underneath the cooling unit. He flinched while his red-masked brother lifted him off the ground and slammed him up against the machine.
"What the shell are you doing?" Raph nearly shouted. "Trying to give someone a heart attack? Ain't we dealing with enough?"
"That's what I've been saying," Don retorted, shockingly feeling no fear. "Those are important papers under there. Let me go, Raph."
"I'll let ya go once I've got a leash on your shell!" he threatened. "No way am I letting you do that again."
"But it's okay for you to run off?" Donatello challenged. He felt Leonardo's gaze rather than hearing him, and turned his head to stare down the blue-masked turtle too. He was prepared for Leo to be just as angry.
Amazingly, the teen looked calm. "I told you he didn't leave, Raph. He's not you."
The way Raphael suddenly dropped him was so unexpected, Don stumbled against the unit.
"Right, you guys go ahead and pick up where you left off. I'll figure out how to get to our family by myself!" Donny declared. "If I have to go alone, I'll do that too."
Raph's hands snaked out to catch him by the shoulders. "You ain't leaving my sight one more time."
"But you can do whatever you want?" the smaller turtle snapped. "Why's it okay for you to worry about us, but we're never allowed to be scared for you? You're the biggest hypocrite I've ever known!"
"I'm...what?"
Raphael's pure shock in the purple-masked turtle standing up to him made Don feel stronger yet.
"You're a hypocrite," he repeated boldly. "You do all of these dangerous things, and we're the bad guys for trying to stop you. But if we do anything similar, you automatically get to kick our shells? How is that fair?"
"I can take care of myself-"
Donatello cut off the rest of what he was going to say with a chopping motion to his brother's wrist, breaking the grip crushing him against the machine.
"Sensei can take care of himself! But where is he, Raph? Where is he?!"
The older turtle shook his head violently. "I don't know – nobody does! We're counting on you to figure that out!"
"I'm not going anywhere with the two of you, not acting like this," Don answered, cooling down at once. "I can do it on my own."
"You're not doing anything alone." The red-masked turtle was dangerously close to his face again, but Donny didn't care.
"You are not the boss of me, any more than Leo is of you. You don't want him to tell you what to do, but you wanna order me around? You can't have a set of rules for yourself, and another for everyone else. You either cooperate with both of us and get onboard this team, or I'm not traveling with one!"
Leonardo finally took a step toward them. "I'll cooperate, Donny. Let me go through the itineraries with you. Two sets of eyes are better than one."
"I'm happy to accept the help," Donny told him, and ducked under the cooling unit to gather his pages. "C'mon, Leo. We have work to do."
He didn't so much as look at Raphael before striding away from the hiding spot, back onto the grounds of the warehouse.
"Hold up," the red-masked turtle spat behind them. "You really think you're leaving me out of this?"
"We will do this without you," Don insisted. "I won't let anything stop me from finding my family, including you."
"You're not going without me!"
Donatello sidestepped his angry brother's advance and clutched the folder full of precious paperwork to his plastron. "We will," he answered, forcing coldness into his voice. "There's no room for bickering, storming off or temper tantrums from here on out. If you agree to that, we can work together. Otherwise, you're free to take your shell home."
He gave his blue-masked brother another look with the statement, but Leo remained strangely silent.
The clear hurt in Raphael's eyes made it harder to stand his ground, yet Donny couldn't let it show.
"I know you would protect me to your dying breath," Donatello continued. "You'd also fight tooth and nail to prevent me from doing something stupid. You're gonna have to accept that we care about you, as much as you do us, Raph. When you do things that endanger your life with no regard for anyone else...It doesn't get any more selfish than that. There's no place for the attitude on this trip. Are you a part of this team, or aren't you?"
The red-masked turtle glanced down awkwardly, and didn't speak for several moments. "If I ain't a part of this team, this family, I don't know what I am. With Otosan and Mikey gone, I'm already wound so tight...The thought of something happening to you guys drives me crazy."
"We don't like the thought of something happening to you either," Leo mentioned at last.
Raph nodded vaguely, but offered nothing more.
Donny wasn't satisfied. "Are we a team, Raph? All of us?"
His brother finally lifted his gaze. "Yeah. I'm sorry, Don."
The uttering of an apology was the last thing the purple-masked turtle expected, and it left him speechless.
"We need to figure out what boat we're stowing away on," Leo filled in, resting an arm around Donatello's shell. "No more messing around or distractions. We have to get down to business."