Part 1
Part 1

On topside, homeless people walked the streets. Few gathered around bon fires. Others turned their heads to see newcomers emerging from a manhole. The Turtles wore their disguises with their stuff swung behind their backs. They blended in with the homeless around them. They truly were without a home. Something that has happened before with no surprise. The sky was covered with a thick blackness. The night air was cool and strangely clean this evening. A small van drove around with men dressed in soldier attire. Terrific. The group drove around as if patrolling the streets. Must be a threat to innocent people. The homeless started to back away; some started to run. The Turtles watch with confusion.

"Who do you think they're after?" Michaelangelo watched the van circle around.

"Let's not find out." Leonardo looked to see they were at the 42nd Street Library. "Come on. We'll hang out in here till they close."

Knowing the building would check their baggage, the Turtles decided to leave their stuff hidden outside and entered normally. Don slipped his floppies and zips into his pockets incase he would get the chance to download some data from one of the computers. The place was empty with a few people walking around. Young adults mostly sat at tables reading and doing homework. The four instantly separated once they entered and went down different aisles. Don went to sign up for the internet but was discouraged to see there was none available until after closing. A fat lot of help that did.

"Your best luck is if someone gets off before 9. But you only have an hour." The librarian smiled.

Don nodded. "Ah. Thanks." He stepped away from the desk over to the computers. Four available for internet, the other four for a search bank. Each terminal was in use by all adults except for one kid near the wall. Easy bait. His parents will come after him eventually. Don sat at a desk and waited to see a young man or woman come by to pull the boy away. Any minute now. He lifted his sleeve to check the time. 8:05. A dishelved-looking woman came up to the kid and quietly asked him if he were done yet. Don watched closely. Come on, Mom. Get him off! Get him off! The kid nodded and stood up with a stretch. Don started to get up but stopped when he saw the kid went back to get his disk out. Drat! The kid had trouble removing the disk. The mother left to get a librarian for assistance. Don sat back down and groaned. This was going to be awhile. He crossed his arms over the table and placed his head face-down in a tiresome manner. He looked up again to see one of the soldiers patrolling around near the front entrance. Were they looking for them? Two more started to scout around and checked each person. Don jumped up and pushed in his chair. The internet will have to wait. The librarian saw him and called him over.

"Excuse me? Are you Don? This computer just needs to restart and can be used now. Did you want to use it?"

Donatello looked to see the boy heading down the aisles with his mother following. They headed for the elevator toward the second floor to the children's section.

"Um, sure. Do I have time?"

"45 minutes. Make it quick."

"Thank you."

The terminal was left alone. Donatello went to find his brothers instead. Leonardo was circling two aisles and stared upward at the numbers when it happened. These soldiers were definitely looking for something all right. Loud explosions were heard from the second floor and panic arose. Everyone fell to the ground as the soldiers began to run to the stairs to reach the second floor. Mike and Raph were already on that level when they heard the explosion down a hallway. Both looked up from a computer terminal.

"Shit, Mike! Did ya hear that?!"

"I think the whole building heard it!"

The librarian started a single file line of kids that were wandering around while parents grabbed their own.

Raph pulled his brother away. "Mike, check around in here for anyone suspicious-looking. I'm gonna check down the hallway."

"Right!"

Michaelangelo started to look down each aisle in the main center of the children's room as Raphael took off down the hall with sai in hand.

"What the hell....?"

He heard low growling sounds as he approached a darkened room. He plunged into the pitch black room and heard the growling get louder. It sounded like a rabid dog. Upon closer inspection, he stared down to a small beastly creature with four long arms and glowing red eyes.

"Holy shit!"

The creature turned to Raph and bared it's gleaming white rows of all fangs. Raph jumped at it and drew his sai deep within it's hairy body. The creature howled and started to attack by wrapping his arms in a tight squeeze around his neck. Raph kicked and punched, able to swing around and send the thing flying and smacking against the wall. As small and weak as it seemed, the creature rolled around and sunk it's needle-sharp fangs into Raph's leg. Raph shouted and hurled himself on top of it, stabbing with his sai in numerous places.

"Die, damn you! Die!"

It was relentless through the many piercings Raph made. Blood poured onto the carpet, leaving a foul odor in the room. The creature finally went unconscious and dropped it's arms away. Raph slipped from it's grasp and was shocked to see he just got a blood bath. His trench coat stunk of the creature's crimson-colored blood. He looked down at his bloodied leg. It was a deep gash. Looked as if the creature scratched the area as long red streaks of blood rushed down to his foot.

"Damn it."

Off to the side was an AV room full of video equipment. The creature must have tampered with them and caused each one of them to explode.

"This thing obviously didn't want to be photographed."

He stepped in closer to see which machines were destroyed. A television with VCR was thrown down and the main controls for surveillance were shut down. For good. Not even Donatello could fix it. It was beyond repair. The wires were torn and ripped from their sockets while silver buttons and knobs laid in a broken mess of junk. Raph could see where the creature chewed through to get to the insides. Sparks started to fly, making Raph flinch. He heard footsteps reaching the room and quickly slipped into a storage room. He listened for voices.

"There it is." "Someone already killed it before us." "Is it dead?" "Looks that way but we can't be too sure. Let's take it back to headquarters."

The men stuffed the creature into a dark sack and returned downstairs, telling everyone that it was a rabid dog that caused the damage and that everything was taken care of. One of the librarians asked to have a look but one of the soldiers warned him that the dog was only unconscious, thus preventing him or anyone to view it. People started to talk among themselves as parents were escorted near the staircase of the second floor to wait for their children. Leo and Don were almost taken out the exit with the rest of the non-parental adults.

Donatello held up a hand. "Wait. There's two from our group upstairs."

The librarian looked to the group piling outside. Then to Leo and Don.

"Your children are upstairs?"

Don almost laughed but was stopped by Leo.

"Um, yes, ma'am. Well, one is a child. Ahem! We need to go get them."

"We're not letting anyone go upstairs. You'll have to wait down here with the others."

The librarian walked away from them. Don looked over to see the large crowd of parents with worried looks washed over their faces. Some women were quietly sobbing into their husband's arms in fear their kids were killed or injured. Don then saw the elevator and checked to make sure no one was watching them.

"I'm not a parent, but Mike and Raph could be in trouble. Let's take the elevator."

Don and Leo slipped away unnoticed and took the elevator which seemed to work surprisingly. Reaching the top, they stopped at the intersection of the hall. Leo pointed to the long hall way.

"I'll check down here. You look in the main center."

Fear gripped Leonardo as he noticed a faint line of blood on the carpet as he walked down toward employees-only rooms. He followed the blood trail up to a dark room. The smell of the blood filled his nostrils and made him nauseous. He found his brother sitting quietly in the corner. His body was as still as death.

"Raph?"

Raphael looked up with glassy eyes.

"Mmm, Leo?"

Leonardo ran over to see his brother's skin was a pale shade of green. He looked horrible.

"Raph, what happened? You're bleeding!"

Raph gave him a 'duh!' look. "No, kidding! I got into a fight with some weird-looking creature that was lurking around in here. Before I finished him off, he bit me. Does it really look that bad?"

Leonardo pulled him off the floor and placed an arm around his shoulder.

"Bad? It's not as bad as the rest of you looks."

"Please, Leo. I'm in no mood for insults."

Leo groaned. "I meant you don't look so good. Your skin is pale and your eyes are glassy. That's not normal."

The two slowly walked out and met up with Mike and Don.

Don thumbed to Mike. "Found him. He was consoling some kids before they were taken down to their parents."

Mike looked proud. "I'm like a magnet to the little ones. I got them to smile before they left."

"Yea, for Mike. Bravo." Raph's voice sounded slurred.

Mike was confused. "What's wrong with him?" He sized him up and gasped at his leg. "Holy shit! What happened to you?!"

"I met the Devil, Mike. Or mebbe one of his pals."

"Let's get out of here and take care of your wounds." Don stepped over to the other side of Raph and placed his arm around him.

"The Devil? Here?" Michaelangelo still looked confused. Don eyed at him as he and Leo started to walk off with a limping Raph.

"Come on, Mike. We're going to have to tell a whopper of a lie to get out of this one."

Don and Leo looked over the balcony to see how big of a crowd was left. Damn, the police were here! Their favorite. They overheard the cops were coming up to check out the area.

"Great, just great." Leonardo looked over to Raph. "Will you be able to do some climbing?"

Minutes later, a cool breeze struck their faces as their bodies were pressed against a steep window ledge. Michaelangelo looked over to Leo; his bandana strands wapping him in the face.

"Leo, if I fall, crack open my skull and die a quick painful death, I will come back and haunt you!"

"Just, don't look down and keep moving."

The Turtles slid across the thin slab of concrete to reach the back of the building. Luckily, they had grappling hooks tucked away in their belts for any situation such as this. Each clanked the prong end of the hook into the solid concrete and tugged at the rope before sliding down to safety. Blue and red lights shone below them from the squad cars. People were scattered around the premises. Reaching firm ground, the Turtles were surprised to find their stuff where they last hid it and disappeared into the night without being seen.

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