Anton and Yuuta stood at an intersection studying the map from the emergency bag. "It's this one. I'm pretty sure."
Yuuta squeaked in protest, pointing down the other tunnel. The twins and Shen had worn themselves out crying and freshly changed in the dark of an access tunnel dozed off. Meanwhile Ana groaned her protests in between retching while Alli rubbed her back. "You be okay. We get there soon."
Ana was slow and whiny. Anton couldn't get to the lair and his mom and dad fast enough. If only he and Yuuta could agree on which path to take. He held the map up again, tapping the outlined route. "Yuuta, this is it. Look."
Yuuta stomped his foot while tapping the wall for his tunnel choice with his tail.
"But it says, right here-" Anton tapped the map then pointed to the wall. He was beginning to doubt himself because Yuuta was good at finding things. He studied the map, retracing from where they began.
"Eeeep. Yip." Yuuta replied, yanking the map from Anton's hands to turn it.
"Ohhhh. Yeahhh. My bad." Anton nodded. "This way then."
Yuuta shook his head as the small group tread on down a narrower tunnel. A steady stream of water ran down the middle, roaches scattering into the darkness ahead as they went. Ana wept, shuffling her feet as she walked stiffly beside Alli. "I shouldn't be here. This can't be happening. Oh my god, are those roaches? Those are roaches. Why? Why is this happening to me?"
Alli held Ana's hand, patting the top. "You be okay. We be there soon."
Anton and Yuuta looked at the map then each other. Anton nodded. "We'll get there faster if you walk fast. We're going too slow."
"Well you don't even know how to read a map! We might not even be going the right way. I hate this. All of it." Ana stomped her foot, splashing it in the water. The scent of poop rose up to greet them. Ana screamed in protest, shaking her foot as she cried. Then she looked ahead of them and let out a scream that had Alli cowering behind them as Anton and Yuuta leapt into fighting stances peering around them for danger.
Only Anton didn't see anything… except for two rats in the water ahead of them. His head tipped to the side, squinting as his gaze briefly met Yuuta's eyes then slid over to Ana. "Why're you screamin'?"
"Rat! Rats! There's rats down here!" She waved her hands, pointing a polished nail toward the rats, who to their credit didn't seem to care they were there.
Yuuta dropped his stance, turned to glare at Ana, his hands on his hips. Anton crossed his arms, waiting for Ana to catch up in her head.
"Why are you staring at me like that?" Ana threw her hands up, then pointed to the rats beyond. "There are rats and roaches and poop and I don't belong here." She blubbered. "I don't belong hereeeee."
"Um, Ana?" Alli whispered.
"What? What now?" Ana swiped at her eyes, her face streaked with black from stuff dripping down with her tears.
"Um, Yuuta is a rat."
"I know, gross, right?" Ana replied thoughtlessly. "But he's a people rat, which is supposed to be clean. You know, like those pet rats that weirdos have. But these are are nasty, disease-filled, sewer rats and we're all going to get horribly sick and die." She looked around as though that explained everything.
After a moment of stunned silence, Alli yanked her hand out of Ana's and crossed her arms over her chest, fixing the adult woman with a fierce glare. "Yuuta is not gross."
Ana shrugged. "He's still a rat. It's a little gross."
Alli's little nose wrinkled. "You're a mean, nasty lady and I don't want to go with you anymore. Not until you poligize to Yuuta." A thin red eyebrow lifted as she inclined her head in Yuuta's direction.
Anton thought he'd seen Aunt Denim make that face. They looked just alike right then. He was proud of Alli. She was right.
He dropped his heels flat to the concrete. "Yeah. You know what. Me too. You take that back or we ain't taking you with us." He wondered if he'd have to actually leave her and cringed at how mad his Uncle Aries would be with him if he did. But it's all he could think of to make a stand for what was right. They couldn't go back. And he couldn't let her talk about Yuuta that way. He wasn't going a step further.
"What? No, you can't." Ana gasped, flailing her arms. "Fine, I'm sorry, ok. Can we get out of here now?"
Yuuta shuffled uncomfortably, clearly wishing to be anywhere but here.
Alli held her ground. "You gotta tell him that. And you gotta mean it."
Ana's hands balled into fists and she took a deep breath causing her to gag. "Come on, he can't even talk."
"But he can understand you." Anton snapped.
Grimacing, she turned to Yuuta. "I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. Please get me out of here."
For a moment no one moved. Then Ana burst out sobbing.
Yuuta stepped forward and took her hand with an encouraging squeak.
Snuffling, she nodded and let him lead her around the next turn where they all stopped.
The tunnel leading to the lair from here had caved in.
Anton looked down at the map. "What do we do now?"
"We've got to go another way." Alli answered, pointing back the way they'd come. "I want to go fast. It's dark. I'm scared. We go fast and we get there fast." With that, Alli yanked Anton's flashlight out of his hand and turned, running back the way they'd come.
"No, Alli wait!" Anton yelled after her. Jem let out a whimper and Anton realized he couldn't run after her while carrying the babies. Yuuta realized it too, grabbing Anton's arm and squeaking as he pointed to Shen.
Both boys looked at Ana as Alli disappeared around the bend. "Help!" Anton shouted as Yuuta squeaked. He pointed to Shen again, then to Ana. Squeaking up a storm.
"What? What is he saying?" Ana wailed, pulling at her hair. "I can't take much more of this."
"He's sayin' take Shen so he can go after her!" Anton snapped, as he helped Yuuta out of the carrier. Ana held her hands up in protest as Shen started to cry.
Then Alli screamed.
Yuuta forced Shen into Ana's already raised hands and the startled woman reflexively grabbed the baby in front of her, thrown off balance as Yuuta darted by.
Anton had planned to follow at a less jostling pace when he realized that Ana, heavily pregnant, in a sewer, in heels, having just had a squalling infant forced into her arms now swayed precariously, her mouth a large 'o' of surprise. Sparing a second to look worriedly in the direction of Alli's scream, he moved quickly behind as she toppled backwards, catching her back on his raised palms as she came down.
Trembling with the effort of keeping her from squishing Scout into his plastron, he now faced the question of how to right her and her and Shen's hysterical sobbing weren't helping him think.
Then her heels lost traction and she plopped down, bottom first, into the grimy ground.
"Ahh, get me up! Get me up! I can feel it soaking through my dress. Get me up!"
The problem had turned into an opportunity. Anton shucked out of Jen and Scout's harness and placed them beside Shen in her lap. "Stay here. We'll be right back."
"Don't leave me." Ana wailed as he took off after Yuuta and Alli.
Alli thought she was being brave, at least she wanted to be. She thought if she led the way they'd get there fast. And maybe Ana wouldn't be such a crybaby. But right then she knew she wasn't brave. In fact nowhere near it. Her shoe slipped in something slimy and she fell, dropping her flashlight and scraping her knee. Then the little light flickered and went out. It was dark and her knee hurt and all she could think of was the scary man chasing her in the dark place until Daddy saved her. Only she was pretty sure he wasn't coming this time. So she'd started screaming.
"Eep. Eek. Chirp. Ip. Yip." called Yuuta, from somewhere in the pitch. Then a new light appeared, along with him as he held an extra flashlight. Frowning, he knelt beside her looking at the bloody tear in the knee of her pants. He dropped the first aid bag, opened it and fished out a little kit.
Then Anton was there. "You okay, Alli?"
"Yes," she whimpered. "I guess so. I just want to go home. I want my mom and dad. I want to go fa-" She stopped whining to point to the flashing light on what looked like a lunch box inside the bag. "What's that mean?"
Then the little light started making a horrible noise like a fire alarm. Anton pulled it out, turning it this way and that while Yuuta finished up with Alli's knee. Anton opened the box revealing little clear mask looking things and a piece of paper.
"What's it say, Anton?" Alli pushed herself up, hugging Yuuta her thanks. He pat her reassuringly then turned to look at what Anton was reading.
"It says if the light is red the air is bad and to wear a mask. It also says that means we are going the wrong way." Anton rooted around in the bag. "We got to go another way quick cas' there's only 4 masks and we got 7 of us."
"You should give them to the babies and Ana cos she's got a baby in her." Alli nodded.
"Somebody help me!" Ana wailed from the other side of the second tunnel.
Alli pulled an extra flashlight out of the backpack and shined it on the walls, looking around them. "Hey! Look there! Isn't that our sign? The one on all the family stuff?"
Anton fidgeted with the siren device finding a button to turn down the volume. His head was really starting to ache.
It was Yuuta's excited chirps as Alli tugged on his hand that got him to look. "Is it on the map?" Alli ran forward, stretching on tiptoe to rub dirt away from what was clearly the Hamato crest, conveniently at Anton and Yuuta height.
Anton came alongside her, studying the space as Alli wiped away the dirt. He pulled the map out of his pocket, looked around them then back to the map. "Yuuta," he sighed, "we both read it wrong." His gaze fell to where the floor met the wall. He reached out and pushed on a slightly ajar tile bearing the same family crest. The wall popped open revealing a well lit, much cleaner tunnel. "I forgot about the door part. I think it was open already when we walked during the drill. Do you remember?"
Yuuta eeped and chirped.
Anton nodded. "Oh yeah, we were chasing each other an goofin off, then uncle Leo got all blah, blah, Blah and we were like, my bad and -"
"Is somebody going to help meeeeeee?!" Ana wailed.
Yuuta chirped and Anton chuckled. "Yeah, we'd better go get her."
TSOTCTSOTC
As Mikey disappeared into the smoke of his rapidly fading cover, Donnie knew he had precious little time to formulate a strategy.
There had been five EDF operatives all equipped with body armor and assault rifles. One had been postioned in the street in front of him, two in neighboring alleys behind him and two more approached from the sidewalks on either side.
His previous exploration searching for medical supplies informed him that he only had one shruiken and one kunai rattling around in his bag. He instinctively reached for his telescoping staff only to find nothing there. That's right, it had been on his desk when the lab exploded. Between the explosion and his own panic, he'd arrived with no forethought or preparation and consequently had little to work with. Though Sensei would say his mind was his most important piece of equipment.
One advantage to facing professionals was their predictability. They would follow the best tactical course of action, so he had a very good idea of their next move.
A mental review of the people around him allowed him to identify which one had a large and extremely generic, hoodie jacket. Rioter or not, Donnie felt a twinge of guilt as he dropped the guy with a pressure point strike and snagged his coat. Slipping into it and flipping up the hood, he sidestepped into the crowd, altering his posture and gait to match.
They would be moving in on his last known position while keeping an eye out for escape attempts. A good strategy if he'd been trying to get away.
He shuffled around, blending into the crowd, waiting until both he and his pursuers were in just the right relative positions. His hand closed around the shruiken. Go time.
Without warning, he launched himself sideways, plowing through a few unfortunate individuals to bodily check the soldier who'd almost been in touching distance. As the man stumbled into the metal pole at the corner of the intersection, his back connected with one of the power lines, meant to feed the traffic lights, that had broken free in the chaos of the night and now hung limply down the length of the support post. The innocuous-seeming line came to life, jerking the soldier's limbs into convulsions as through he were a marionette in the hands of an excited toddler.
Beyond nursing a small hope that the man would survive his encounter, Donnie had already snuck back into the crowd. Knowing all eyes were on the soldier, he pretended to stare with the rest as he backed into his next position while the other soldiers closed in around him, location narrowed down.
One more step. There. The next target was in just the right spot.
Donnie let his shruiken fly, ducking low and rushing forward. The soldier sneered, not even bothering to duck as it was clearly going high.
But he hadn't been aiming for the solider. He wanted the sign, just in front of him. An old timey, hanging, wooden sign, beckoning people into a kitschy souvenir shop. The forward-most chain had rusted badly near the top and never been repaired. Donnie's shruiken shattered it, sending the sign down in a swinging arc to smash into the soldier's very surprised face.
Dropping his weapon to clutch his nose as it exploded in blood, Donnie arrived just in time to catch it, slamming the butt of the rifle into the man's throat. He'd live, though he might regret that in the moment, but he was out of the fight.
The rioters screamed and parted, rushing away in all directions as the three remaining soldiers leveled their weapons on Donnie.
Channeling his inner Mikey, he sprung into motion, full speed, pattern erratic, not minding the shots aimed at where he'd been rather than where he was going.
He was no Denim, but at close range or carefully set and aimed long range, he could be amazingly accurate. It was about the math after all. The current situation dictated he rely on the former.
In range of the nearest soldier, he fired a burst of carefully targeted shots. Like all of them, the guy wore body armor, but that didn't pose an obstacle. Body armor was intended to shield the user from lethal damage, leaving non lethal areas exposed to permit ergonomic mobility.
During the war, when Raph and Leo had reluctantly conceded to some of the darker realities of combat, Donnie ended up favoring Mikey's mindset, resisting the idea of taking a life, enemy or not, strategic or not, logical or not. It wasn't in him to do so.
Thus nonlethal targets were his preference and he sought to disable rather than kill. Shattered elbows and wrists would end this soldier's participation in the battle...and probably his career.
Two remaining. One ahead, one behind.
Without cover, the best course of action was to not get hit. Not an easy feat with his opponents switching to full auto sprays of bullets in the now empty space.
Sticking with unpredictability, Donnie unloaded his clip into the legs of the forward soldier, cringing at her screams, as he ducked his head into his shell, dropped low and scuttled back towards his last assailant in a single, quick burst of motion.
Bullets from the first volley pinged off his shell until he threw himself into a sideways roll, sprinting ahead in that moment when his opponent reloaded a new clip. Arriving just in the nick of time, he clubbed the rifle from the man's hands.
The soldier let it go, bringing an elbow done on Donnie's grip to return the favor. Following up with a blade hand strike to the trachea, Donnie retracted and turned his head in time to catch it in the cheek instead.
Seeing stars, Donnie dropped his center of mass and turned into the soldier, burying his kunai into his chest. Bulletproof and slashproof armor could not practically be stabproof as well. A pierced lung should give him the edge he needed to disable his last foe.
Completely unfazed, the soldier clamped a hand on Donnie's wrist, breaking his grip on the kunai, and blasted a knee into his plastron, knocking him onto his shell with more force than should have been possible.
He rolled back to his feet as the soldier advanced him him, pulling Donnie's kunai out of his chest with one hand and raising the other.
Donnie had made a serious miscalculation. This wasn't a soldier.
The pointed hand mechanically reassembled itself and blasted Donnie with a sonic pulse that brought him to his knees.
This was a cyborg and he was in trouble.
The cyborg approached, kunai raised, as Donnie struggled against the vertigo to no avail. The pulse continuously scrambled his body's orientation with space, making purposeful motion impossible. For all intents and purposes, he was helpless, about to be slain with his own weapon.
No. It couldn't end this way. He would not leave April and his newly existent child. Not like this.
Just ahead of him, he saw it. His phone had fallen out of his bag when the cyborg kicked him. It was just out of reached. He struggled towards it, his body not cooperating.
The the cyborg loomed over him, sonic pulse more intense than ever.
And then it was gone.
The cyborg spun away from him to block Leo's twin katanas bearing down on it with his brother's full weight, having leapt from the rooftop. The sonic cannon shattered and the kunai went flying as the cyborg staggered back under the force of the blow. But it didn't miss a beat, arms switching to blades just in time to catch the start of Leo's onslaught.
Leo laid into it, ambidextrously transitioning between hands, lead attacking, secondary defending in a blinding assault that the cyborg could barely keep up with, even with the aid of analytical and predictive software. It was only a matter of time.
Until the cyborg electrified its blade arms.
Caught in the initial shock, Leo lost one sword but managed to maintain his grip on the other as he switched from parrying to dodging.
Flowing around the cyborg like water, he moved under and inside the blade guard, gaining a minor slash or stab here and there in the unprotected portions of the torso armor, but being unable to touch the cyborg's blades limited his options.
He couldn't keep it up forever. Unlike the cyborg, he would begin to tire sooner or later. If an opening wouldn't present itself, he'd just have to create one.
Before he could, the cyborg stilled so suddenly it actually threw Leo off balance. He gaped at it, as it straightened into a statue, blank face, unseeing eyes. Leo waved the tip of his sword in front of its face. Nothing.
"Battle really should not have given me a look at his system."
Leo turned to see Donnie grinning as he held up his phone and couldn't help laughing.
"Come on. Everyone's waiting at the lair."