I want to thank everyone who has reviewed and read my story this far! We're nearing the end, unless it takes another turn like it has so many times. lol
please enjoy!
A clang of metal echoed across the once empty warehouse. Darkness filled the room, hovering over it like a blanket, embracing it in its cold grasp. Three figures walked in the dark, seemingly hovering over the ground as the night hid their movements. One held a lantern in their grasp, a diamond ring on one of the slim fingers. Bracelets dangled off the wrist as the figure swung its hand up, the light sweeping across four metal cages stacked in a corner.
"Is all ready?" a female voice purred.
"Yes ma'am." A male voice answered.
"Good."
"How much do you expect to make off of these animals?"
"I expect the numbers will be in the millions." She chuckled.
"Miss?" another male voice called, younger that the first male voice. "The vets refuse to give us the tranquillizer doses unless they know the exact body weight."
Silence hung thick over the room as the woman gave an eerie smile. "Kill them." she brought a cigarette to rosy red lips and puffed out a small amount of smoke. "Nothing is going to stop us."
"Yes ma'am." Footsteps echoing away told her that her command would be carried out shortly.
"What will we do about the dosage then?" the male voice asked again.
She brought the lantern up, hitting the man square in the face. Brown eyes flickered in annoyance as he brushed a lock of freshly washed brown hair behind an ear. "Steal it."
"But if we give them too much…"
"Then we will sell the bodies off to scientists." She replied. Her blue eyes gleamed. "We only need one alive." She brought the cigarette back to her lips, giving it another puff. "Perhaps we should pay a visit to Mr. Jones. The youngest, Michelangelo is going to pay them a visit later this evening. We knock him out and weigh him then…after all, four alive would be better than dead."
"How do you know this?"
"Raphael has a tracker that was placed on the inside of his shell." She laughed. "It has a special device that if anyone is within three feet of him, we are able to hear the conversation."
The man laughed. "Very good. We shall have him yet…but I have to ask. Why don't we just grab the youngest then and use him as bait?"
"Do you not recall what happened last time you tried that?" her voice turned cold. "I lost twenty of my best men. No, we capture them all at once."
"And what of the red banded turtle? The one they call Raphael?"
"He will watch." Another smile played over her face. "He will watch in silence as, one by one, each of his brother's is taken from him."
"And of the others?"
"The youngest one in the orange mask already has a potential buyer." She told him, a hint of pride in her voice. "A man in Alaska already wishes to buy him…he is the youngest and will break first and the easiest. The one in purple, Donatello, has already been sold to a man for a circus. He is an excellent fighter but is not a rebellious turtle. From my notes, he is calm, shy, but very thoughtful and resourceful."
"What of the leader? The one in the blue? The one they call Leonardo…" His voice trailed off, as he thought of the turtle in the cage, seemingly lost and desperate to protect his family. "He will be hard to control…they say he is the best fighter of them all."
"You do whatever it takes." She told him coldly. Warning was clear in her voice. "You fail…you die."
"Casey open up!" Mikey banged softly on the glass window separating him from the warm living room.
"Sorry Mike." Casey opened the window, ushering his friend in. "My crazy neighbor decided tonight was a good night to stop by and bug me."
Mikey laughed as he stepped inside, sealing the window behind him. "What? You couldn't take an old lady?"
"She ain't exactly an old lady, Mike." Casey called from the kitchen.
"No?"
"Try the daughter of a sumo wrestler and black belt in karate?"
"Uhhh…"
"Exactly." Casey walked out of the kitchen; two cola's in one hand and the other helped balance a pizza on his shoulder. "Too bad the others couldn't come up." He set the pizza on the coffee table.
"Nah, Leo had some things to do with Splinter and Don was giving Raph some exercises to help build up his leg again." He opened the pizza box, inhaling the fresh aroma of the pepperoni pizza before him. "But I was bored and pizza sounded too good to pass up." He happily lifted a slice, the cheese dripping from the edges, and stuck a large bite in his mouth.
Casey chuckled at the cheese dribbling from Mike's beak and took a slice and a "manly" bite of his own.
"Tastes a little off." Mikey commented as he chewed, staring thoughtfully at his pizza.
"Probably just overcooked it some." Casey said between bites.
Mike shrugged and stuffed the rest in his mouth. He started to reach for a second slice when the room started to tilt funny.
"Whoa!" Mikey grabbed his head with one hand, shaking his head to clear it.
"You OK?…What the -?" Casey had stood up suddenly to aid the turtle, but was hit with a wave of dizziness of his own. With a groan, and sudden pain shooting through his body, he sank to the floor.
Mikey gave a small whimper of pain as bolts of pain shot through his chest. He reached for his cell to call Don but he never made it…he joined Casey on the floor a second later.
He dimly heard the sound of glass breaking and unfamiliar voices of men. His vision blurred and his body felt paralyzed. He tried to lift a hand, to reach his nunchuck, but his arm betrayed him. He could still hear and feel everything, but he was useless in stopping it.
He felt two pairs of hands roll him off his stomach and onto what felt like cold steel. A part of him started to panic as he waited for leather straps to be wrapped around him arms, legs, and chest. Another part of him just didn't care what happened…it wasn't important. Right?
He heard a strange beeping sound as his blurred vision saw men move above him, touching him, injecting needles into his arm. He groaned as a needle jabbed into his arm wrong, drawing blood but painfully.
A pair of hands forced his mouth open and a gloved hand was shoved in, feeling his teeth and gums, called out notes to another person. He wanted to bite the person, to tell him to get his hand out of his mouth, but all that came out was a muffled whimper of protest as another needle was jabbed into his thigh.
The hands released his mouth as another shoved a piece of leather in, letting him bite down hard on it as one more needle was stuck into his neck. This time all went dark.
The three men entered the apartment building, after making sure the pizza they'd drugged had worked on the two occupants inside. One of them carried a large, flat, portable scale under one arm while the other one carried a clipboard of notes to fill out over the turtle. The last man carried a bag full of needles, tubes, and anything else their procedure required.
"Come on, roll him onto it." The blonde haired man grunted as he set down the large scale. A black haired and red haired man dropped their supplies and helped him roll the huge turtle onto the scale. The small scale beside it began to beep as the red mechanical numbers jumped past one hundred and began climbing. After the turtle was limp on the metal sheet, the red haired man picked up his clipboard, pen poised over the white sheet.
"How much does he weigh?"
The black haired man checked the numbers. "186!" he yelled.
The red haired man jotted down the numbers. He turned to the black haired man who was getting out needles and small tubes for the blood. "Greg, can you get the blood samples? Me and Chester will do the rest."
Greg nodded, already poking one needle through the turtle's arm. "No problem Deg."
Deg pried open the turtle's mouth, amazed that the teeth weren't yellow. "Teeth look good!" he called out as he pulled on a leather glove and inspected the mouth closer. "Seems to have a few cavities though…must have a sweet tooth." He reached into his bag and pulled out a thick leather strap, setting it far into the turtle's jaws and buckling it behind his head so it wouldn't drop out of his mouth before releasing his grip.
The turtle immediately started to gnaw on the leather strip in obvious pain as Greg stuck a needle into his neck, injecting a clear substance into the veins. The turtle went completely unconscious.
Deg nodded and pulled out a knife from a small sheath from his back pocket. "Hold him up." He ordered as Chester and Greg propped the turtle against the wall, each holding tightly to an arm. Deg pulled out a small lighter from his other front pocket and flicked it on. The small flame burst into life as the small knife was held over it, heating it up until it was blackened and smoke streams rose from the blade.
With one quick motion, Deg slicked the knife against green skin at the shoulder where it would be hidden from view due to the shell blocking it from sight. The turtle, although out cold, started to struggle and let out muffled moans and whimpers of pain behind the leather strip. Chester and Greg just held him tight as Deg dropped a small circle of metal into the open wound. He then held the knife horizontal and let the heated blade rest on the burnt skin, letting the skin melt back together until it was just a scar.
"That everything?" Chester asked as he wrote down the last bit of information he could gather from viewing.
Greg nodded his head as he undid the leather strap from the turtle's mouth and let the body sink to the floor. Silently the three men gathered their supplies up and left in their wake a broken window and a moaning turtle and without a clue as to their ever being in the apartment of Casey Jones.
Confused? Good - all questions will be answered later!
See if you can't guess who the mysterious woman at the beginning is....
Review please!
