It was a good while after Ashton had her emotional outburst. She was
still sitting atop the subway car, still hanging her head down, but not
repeating her phrase anymore.
Ashton lifted her head and looked around, everyone seemed preoccupied. Mikey was sleeping on the couch, she could hear Leo and Raph fighting in another room, Venus was meditating, and Donatello was on his computer. Ashton didn't feel like asking for the time; she'd find out on her own.
A little while later, Splinter came out of his room from his nap, en route to the kitchen. He surveyed his surroundings as he often did to make sure that everything was all right, and noticed something or some_one_ missing; Ashton.
Venus stopped meditating, sensing Splinter's presence, and his worry. She opened her eyes, and noticed his quizzical expression.
"Master, what is wrong?" asked Venus.
"Ashton is missing." he said.
"Oh my." said Venus.
Raph and Leo's fighting had gotten louder and more brutal.
Splinter looked over towards the other room, and went in there.
Venus followed him.
"You're goin' down!" grunted Leo as he wrestled Raph.
"You've been sayin' that crap for the past 15 minutes! *You're the one goin' down!" said Raph.
"Boys!" shouted Splinter as he saw the two fighting.
Raph and Leo quickly froze as they turned to Splinter.
"Why can't you two get along, just for once?" asked Splinter in frustration.
"He started it!" Raph and Leo said together as they pointed to each other.
Splinter just shook his head and sighed. "Where is Ashton?"
"She's on top of the train car just like earlier." said Leo.
"Not anymore." said Venus.
"Oh come on, she's gotta be there. I didn't see her leave." said Leo as he exited the room.
Raph, Venus, and Splinter also came out of the room.
Leo looked on top of the car.
"You were saying." said Venus as she folded her arms.
"Where could she go? She don't know nothin' 'bout New York." said Raph.
"I agree, she could be in danger, especially if it is not dark yet." said Splinter. "What time is it?"
Out in the sewer tunnels, Ashton trudged through the muck and mire.
"Filth. That's all this place is, pure filth." she muttered.
She soon found a grate that gave her a view of how it looked above ground. The sky was getting dark, so she walked on to find and exit from the filthy sewers.
In the lair, Splinter had Donny track Ashton with his "eye in the sky" program.
"Her body temperature could be anywhere from 98.6 to 101.8 degrees. I don't even know how much she weighs, or how tall she is . . ." said Donny as he clicked away at his computer.
"Do the best you can." said Splinter.
Donny did some more clicking around, and finally got Ashton up, displayed as a brown blip.
"Bingo." he said, grinning.
"Where is she?" asked Venus.
Donny looked carefully at the screen. "The manhole right in front of Central Park."
Raph turned away and began leaving the lair.
"Where are you going?" asked Splinter.
"To get the kid." replied Raph.
"Maybe I should go instead, you know, to apologize for making her mad earlier." said Donny.
"Listen Don, no offense bro, but I don't think she wants to see you right now." said Raph.
Donny nodded in agreement; he'd just have to apologize when she got back.
"Be careful." said Splinter.
"I will." said Raph as he grabbed his sai on his way out of the lair.
Raph made his way to the manhole in font of Central Park, and saw that the cover hadn't been put back on. He got out of the sewer, then put the manhole cover back in place, and looked around.
"Now where would that kid go?" he asked himself. Then he looked straight ahead. "Central Park, duh. Cats dig trees." Raph then walked into the park, and began looking around.
"Ashton." he called.
No reply came. He heard nothing but the rustling of leaves in the cool breeze, and crickets.
Raph sighed and continued on walking through, calling her name all the while.
It was almost a full hour later, and still no sign of Ashton.
Raph sighed deeply. "Where is that kid?"
Just then, there was a rustling in the tree near him. Raph looked up into it, but saw nothing but pitch black.
"Ashton?" he called.
There was no response for a while. "What?" asked a voice, coming from that same tree.
"There you are. I spent almost an hour out here lookin' for ya." said Raph.
Ashton was quiet for a moment. "Why?" she finally asked.
"Cos, the city at night is a dangerous place, I didn't want ya gettin' hurt or somethin. Besides, Splinter was worried too." replied Raph.
Everything was quiet for a long while.
Raph sat down, leaning against the tree trunk. "What are you doin' up there anyway?"
"Thinking." said Ashton.
"Hmm." said Raph. "Tell me somethin, what was that stuff you were mumblin' earlier?"
"A phrase an Indian medicine man once called me." said Ashton.
"Okay . . . "
"It means 'black panther with tortured soul'." said Ashton.
"He knew you or somethin?"
"No, he could tell." She sighed deeply. "I wanna go home. I miss my forest."
"That nice huh?" asked Raph.
"Very nice. Trees taller than skyscraper buildings could ever hope to be. Rivers so cool to swim in, streams with clean, delicious water . . . its so peaceful . . . lonely, but peaceful."
"Lonely? What, no friends back home at all?"
"No. I don't get attached to any of the other panthers, we don't always get along." said Ashton.
"Ever fought one?" asked Raph.
"One? Try many. About 6 I'd say. I also fought a few leopards, and a couple of snakes that thought of me as a snack."
"And you won?" asked Raph.
"Of course. If I didn't, I wouldn't be here would I?"
Raph chuckled. "True. You're a tough chick to beat them animals."
"Mmhm. That's why it bugs me that I got caught by that stupid hunter."
"Bonesteel is tougher than he seems, he's gotten us a couple of times too." said Raph.
The leaves in the tree rustled a bit, and Raph looked up.
Ashton moved to a long, thick branch in plain view of Raphael.
Raph looked up as Ashton stretched across the branch. He looked at her eyes for a moment, they had a slight glow to them like all cats' eyes do in the dark. He didn't think anything of it, and just looked back towards the ground, idly pulling up pieces of grass.
"You goin' back to Brazil?" asked Raph.
"I want to, but I don't know how." said Ashton.
"Steal away." said a familiar voice.
Raph and Ashton turned to the side and saw Mikey coming towards them.
"Hey dude and dudette, what's up?" asked Mikey.
"Nothin' much. What brings you out here?" asked Raph.
"Aw nothin' much. Splinter wanted to make sure everything was okay, so Leo volunteered. To make a long story short, I came instead." said Mikey as he took a seat next to Raph.
"What's this about stealing away?" Ashton asked.
"Well, since you can't very well buy a plane ticket, you might as well stowaway in the cargo area of a plane." said Mikey.
"I take it you've traveled like this before." said Ashton.
"Well, yeah. I mean, when Donny's travel machine broke down on our way to Florida, I wasn't takin' no for an answer." said Mikey.
Ashton giggled.
"Hey, that's the first time we've seen ya smile." said Raph.
"So you have a sense of humor." said Mikey. "This is good, very good." he said, impersonating a Mafia character as he rubbed his hands together.
Ashton laughed. "I take it you're the jokester of the group."
"You have no idea." said Raph.
Mikey chuckled.
Little beknownst to them, they were being watched from the shadows.
"Steady, steady." said a voice.
"Pffft." An object flew through the air and hit the branch Ashton was on so hard that the branch broke.
Ashton shrieked as the branch broke under her and she fell on Raph and Mikey.
"What happened?" asked Mikey.
"I don't know. Something just hit the branch, and it broke." said Ashton as they all brushed themselves off, and stood up.
They looked around.
"I don't seen anyone around here." said Mikey.
"Dang!" exclaimed the person in the bushes to himself.
Ashton's ears perked up. "Someone else is here watching us."
"How do you know?" asked Mikey.
Ashton's ears twitched towards different directions. "I recognize this sound."
Raph picked the object from the tree. "Yo yous two, check it out." he said while examining a dart.
Ashton and Mikey looked back towards Raph.
Another dart shot out, this time just missing Mikey, who quickly looked at the ground where a small tranquilizer dart laid. He picked it up.
"Another dart?" asked Raph as he walked over.
"Somethin' tells me we better scram." said Mikey.
"You're not goin' anywhere, freaks!" said Bonesteel as he came out of the bushes clutching his large tranquilizer gun.
Ashton glared and hissed at him.
"You're not getting away from me that easy missy!" said Bonesteel.
Ashton glared at him, growling lowly as her nails extended.
Bonesteel prepared another dart for shooting.
"Not today." said Ashton as she got ready to attack him.
"That's right, not today, let's go." said Mikey, grabbing Ashton by the arm.
"Wha . . ."
"Just run!" said Mikey.
Raph pushed her along as he and Mikey ran to the nearest manhole, barely escaping Bonsteel's darts.
"Get back here!!!" shouted Bonesteel.
In the sewer, they all stopped and looked out of a grate as they listened to Bonesteel's frustrated hollers.
"Heh heh, beat ole Bonehead again." chuckled Raph.
"Why did you push me away? I almost had him!" said Ashton.
"Listen kid, one thing you gotta learn, is even the best of warriors fall prey to a tranquilizer dart. Its best to just scram." said Raph.
"Yeah, besides, I'm too hungry to fight." said Mikey. "Let's go home and eat." He said as he began walking towards the lair.
"You're always hungry." said Raph, following.
Ashton just sighed deeply.
Raph stopped and turned around. "You okay?"
Ashton nodded. "Yeah, I'm okay."
"Come on then." said Raph.
Ashton then followed him and Mikey back to the lair.
Inside the lair smelled different than when they had left.
"Ah, Venus is cooking." said Mikey as he walked towards the kitchen.
Ashton held her nose. "You call *that* cooking? The sewers out there smell better than this!"
"Hey, don't let Venus hear you say that. Believe me, you don't wanna see 'er when she gets mad." said Raph.
"Ashton, you are back safely. I'm glad." said Splinter as he came over to her.
Ashton smiled. "Thanks."
"Donatello has something he would like to tell you." said Splinter. Then he stepped to the side to reveal Donny standing there.
"Hey, um, sorry for getting you mad like that earlier. I see now that you don't want to be watched like that, so . . . "
Ashton stopped him. "Apology accepted. I'm sorry that I got so angry too, I just never learned how to control my temper I suppose."
"Heh, neither has Raph." said Donny.
Raph ignored Donny as he sat at the table.
"So what are we eating?" asked Ashton.
"Whatever Venus cooked." said Splinter as he walked over to the kitchen.
"And that sometimes, is very hard to decipher." said Donny.
Ashton giggled as she and Donny walked over to the table.
Hey everyone, I need reviews! Please let me know how you think this story is. Yeah, flames too, as long as they're not too hot. I enjoy writing this, just tell me if you enjoy reading it, thanks!
Ashton lifted her head and looked around, everyone seemed preoccupied. Mikey was sleeping on the couch, she could hear Leo and Raph fighting in another room, Venus was meditating, and Donatello was on his computer. Ashton didn't feel like asking for the time; she'd find out on her own.
A little while later, Splinter came out of his room from his nap, en route to the kitchen. He surveyed his surroundings as he often did to make sure that everything was all right, and noticed something or some_one_ missing; Ashton.
Venus stopped meditating, sensing Splinter's presence, and his worry. She opened her eyes, and noticed his quizzical expression.
"Master, what is wrong?" asked Venus.
"Ashton is missing." he said.
"Oh my." said Venus.
Raph and Leo's fighting had gotten louder and more brutal.
Splinter looked over towards the other room, and went in there.
Venus followed him.
"You're goin' down!" grunted Leo as he wrestled Raph.
"You've been sayin' that crap for the past 15 minutes! *You're the one goin' down!" said Raph.
"Boys!" shouted Splinter as he saw the two fighting.
Raph and Leo quickly froze as they turned to Splinter.
"Why can't you two get along, just for once?" asked Splinter in frustration.
"He started it!" Raph and Leo said together as they pointed to each other.
Splinter just shook his head and sighed. "Where is Ashton?"
"She's on top of the train car just like earlier." said Leo.
"Not anymore." said Venus.
"Oh come on, she's gotta be there. I didn't see her leave." said Leo as he exited the room.
Raph, Venus, and Splinter also came out of the room.
Leo looked on top of the car.
"You were saying." said Venus as she folded her arms.
"Where could she go? She don't know nothin' 'bout New York." said Raph.
"I agree, she could be in danger, especially if it is not dark yet." said Splinter. "What time is it?"
Out in the sewer tunnels, Ashton trudged through the muck and mire.
"Filth. That's all this place is, pure filth." she muttered.
She soon found a grate that gave her a view of how it looked above ground. The sky was getting dark, so she walked on to find and exit from the filthy sewers.
In the lair, Splinter had Donny track Ashton with his "eye in the sky" program.
"Her body temperature could be anywhere from 98.6 to 101.8 degrees. I don't even know how much she weighs, or how tall she is . . ." said Donny as he clicked away at his computer.
"Do the best you can." said Splinter.
Donny did some more clicking around, and finally got Ashton up, displayed as a brown blip.
"Bingo." he said, grinning.
"Where is she?" asked Venus.
Donny looked carefully at the screen. "The manhole right in front of Central Park."
Raph turned away and began leaving the lair.
"Where are you going?" asked Splinter.
"To get the kid." replied Raph.
"Maybe I should go instead, you know, to apologize for making her mad earlier." said Donny.
"Listen Don, no offense bro, but I don't think she wants to see you right now." said Raph.
Donny nodded in agreement; he'd just have to apologize when she got back.
"Be careful." said Splinter.
"I will." said Raph as he grabbed his sai on his way out of the lair.
Raph made his way to the manhole in font of Central Park, and saw that the cover hadn't been put back on. He got out of the sewer, then put the manhole cover back in place, and looked around.
"Now where would that kid go?" he asked himself. Then he looked straight ahead. "Central Park, duh. Cats dig trees." Raph then walked into the park, and began looking around.
"Ashton." he called.
No reply came. He heard nothing but the rustling of leaves in the cool breeze, and crickets.
Raph sighed and continued on walking through, calling her name all the while.
It was almost a full hour later, and still no sign of Ashton.
Raph sighed deeply. "Where is that kid?"
Just then, there was a rustling in the tree near him. Raph looked up into it, but saw nothing but pitch black.
"Ashton?" he called.
There was no response for a while. "What?" asked a voice, coming from that same tree.
"There you are. I spent almost an hour out here lookin' for ya." said Raph.
Ashton was quiet for a moment. "Why?" she finally asked.
"Cos, the city at night is a dangerous place, I didn't want ya gettin' hurt or somethin. Besides, Splinter was worried too." replied Raph.
Everything was quiet for a long while.
Raph sat down, leaning against the tree trunk. "What are you doin' up there anyway?"
"Thinking." said Ashton.
"Hmm." said Raph. "Tell me somethin, what was that stuff you were mumblin' earlier?"
"A phrase an Indian medicine man once called me." said Ashton.
"Okay . . . "
"It means 'black panther with tortured soul'." said Ashton.
"He knew you or somethin?"
"No, he could tell." She sighed deeply. "I wanna go home. I miss my forest."
"That nice huh?" asked Raph.
"Very nice. Trees taller than skyscraper buildings could ever hope to be. Rivers so cool to swim in, streams with clean, delicious water . . . its so peaceful . . . lonely, but peaceful."
"Lonely? What, no friends back home at all?"
"No. I don't get attached to any of the other panthers, we don't always get along." said Ashton.
"Ever fought one?" asked Raph.
"One? Try many. About 6 I'd say. I also fought a few leopards, and a couple of snakes that thought of me as a snack."
"And you won?" asked Raph.
"Of course. If I didn't, I wouldn't be here would I?"
Raph chuckled. "True. You're a tough chick to beat them animals."
"Mmhm. That's why it bugs me that I got caught by that stupid hunter."
"Bonesteel is tougher than he seems, he's gotten us a couple of times too." said Raph.
The leaves in the tree rustled a bit, and Raph looked up.
Ashton moved to a long, thick branch in plain view of Raphael.
Raph looked up as Ashton stretched across the branch. He looked at her eyes for a moment, they had a slight glow to them like all cats' eyes do in the dark. He didn't think anything of it, and just looked back towards the ground, idly pulling up pieces of grass.
"You goin' back to Brazil?" asked Raph.
"I want to, but I don't know how." said Ashton.
"Steal away." said a familiar voice.
Raph and Ashton turned to the side and saw Mikey coming towards them.
"Hey dude and dudette, what's up?" asked Mikey.
"Nothin' much. What brings you out here?" asked Raph.
"Aw nothin' much. Splinter wanted to make sure everything was okay, so Leo volunteered. To make a long story short, I came instead." said Mikey as he took a seat next to Raph.
"What's this about stealing away?" Ashton asked.
"Well, since you can't very well buy a plane ticket, you might as well stowaway in the cargo area of a plane." said Mikey.
"I take it you've traveled like this before." said Ashton.
"Well, yeah. I mean, when Donny's travel machine broke down on our way to Florida, I wasn't takin' no for an answer." said Mikey.
Ashton giggled.
"Hey, that's the first time we've seen ya smile." said Raph.
"So you have a sense of humor." said Mikey. "This is good, very good." he said, impersonating a Mafia character as he rubbed his hands together.
Ashton laughed. "I take it you're the jokester of the group."
"You have no idea." said Raph.
Mikey chuckled.
Little beknownst to them, they were being watched from the shadows.
"Steady, steady." said a voice.
"Pffft." An object flew through the air and hit the branch Ashton was on so hard that the branch broke.
Ashton shrieked as the branch broke under her and she fell on Raph and Mikey.
"What happened?" asked Mikey.
"I don't know. Something just hit the branch, and it broke." said Ashton as they all brushed themselves off, and stood up.
They looked around.
"I don't seen anyone around here." said Mikey.
"Dang!" exclaimed the person in the bushes to himself.
Ashton's ears perked up. "Someone else is here watching us."
"How do you know?" asked Mikey.
Ashton's ears twitched towards different directions. "I recognize this sound."
Raph picked the object from the tree. "Yo yous two, check it out." he said while examining a dart.
Ashton and Mikey looked back towards Raph.
Another dart shot out, this time just missing Mikey, who quickly looked at the ground where a small tranquilizer dart laid. He picked it up.
"Another dart?" asked Raph as he walked over.
"Somethin' tells me we better scram." said Mikey.
"You're not goin' anywhere, freaks!" said Bonesteel as he came out of the bushes clutching his large tranquilizer gun.
Ashton glared and hissed at him.
"You're not getting away from me that easy missy!" said Bonesteel.
Ashton glared at him, growling lowly as her nails extended.
Bonesteel prepared another dart for shooting.
"Not today." said Ashton as she got ready to attack him.
"That's right, not today, let's go." said Mikey, grabbing Ashton by the arm.
"Wha . . ."
"Just run!" said Mikey.
Raph pushed her along as he and Mikey ran to the nearest manhole, barely escaping Bonsteel's darts.
"Get back here!!!" shouted Bonesteel.
In the sewer, they all stopped and looked out of a grate as they listened to Bonesteel's frustrated hollers.
"Heh heh, beat ole Bonehead again." chuckled Raph.
"Why did you push me away? I almost had him!" said Ashton.
"Listen kid, one thing you gotta learn, is even the best of warriors fall prey to a tranquilizer dart. Its best to just scram." said Raph.
"Yeah, besides, I'm too hungry to fight." said Mikey. "Let's go home and eat." He said as he began walking towards the lair.
"You're always hungry." said Raph, following.
Ashton just sighed deeply.
Raph stopped and turned around. "You okay?"
Ashton nodded. "Yeah, I'm okay."
"Come on then." said Raph.
Ashton then followed him and Mikey back to the lair.
Inside the lair smelled different than when they had left.
"Ah, Venus is cooking." said Mikey as he walked towards the kitchen.
Ashton held her nose. "You call *that* cooking? The sewers out there smell better than this!"
"Hey, don't let Venus hear you say that. Believe me, you don't wanna see 'er when she gets mad." said Raph.
"Ashton, you are back safely. I'm glad." said Splinter as he came over to her.
Ashton smiled. "Thanks."
"Donatello has something he would like to tell you." said Splinter. Then he stepped to the side to reveal Donny standing there.
"Hey, um, sorry for getting you mad like that earlier. I see now that you don't want to be watched like that, so . . . "
Ashton stopped him. "Apology accepted. I'm sorry that I got so angry too, I just never learned how to control my temper I suppose."
"Heh, neither has Raph." said Donny.
Raph ignored Donny as he sat at the table.
"So what are we eating?" asked Ashton.
"Whatever Venus cooked." said Splinter as he walked over to the kitchen.
"And that sometimes, is very hard to decipher." said Donny.
Ashton giggled as she and Donny walked over to the table.
Hey everyone, I need reviews! Please let me know how you think this story is. Yeah, flames too, as long as they're not too hot. I enjoy writing this, just tell me if you enjoy reading it, thanks!