Chapter 5
"Onslaught"
"A problem? What kind of problem?" Mike's voice asked from the communicator.
"I don't know exactly, but we have intruders." Don reported. Then a thought struck him. "Mike, I repaired the break Raph made in the fence, so can you throw the switch on the breaker box? I want to make sure our perimeter is secure."
A buzz was heard behind him as the fence switched on. It lessened to a barely audible hum, and thankfully, no alarm sound came out of the communicator. "Good. Now Mike, see the digital feedback panel there?"
"Yeah? What about it?"
"There are plus and minus buttons below it. I want you to press the plus button until the voltage is at it's maximum."
"But Donnie!" Mike said, aghast, "Raph's out there!"
"So are intruders, Mike." Don replied, not pausing a beat, "and they're smart enough to cover their tracks. I want to make sure we catch them. Alive or dead."
"But Don! What if Raph touches it? You said that high of a voltage could kill someone!"
"I sure hope Raph isn't that stupid." Don said icily. "You also have three innocents in that house with you, Mike. You think you can protect them alone? What's more important, Raph or your wife and child?"
"Don!" Mike snapped, "That's not fair! And why would Raph have to be stupid to touch the wire? He touched it before at lower voltage, and it didn't hurt him!"
"Because. You'll see. Just turn it up, Mike."
Michaelangelo sighed in defeat. "Okay, fine." As Mike turned up the meter, the inaudible hum grew into a loud electrical buzzing. Mike realized what Don had meant as he heard the sound coming from his communicator. Anyone who would hear that noise would be warned to not come near.
"Okay, Don. Now what?" Mike asked his brother nervously.
"Just wait Mike. I'm gonna see how far I can track these prints. I'll be back soon. Lock the doors and wait for me, okay?"
"Okay, Don." Mike said with anxiety in his voice, "Just get back soon okay?"
Don sat in the quiet living room, wringing his hands in nervous anticipation. He couldn't sleep. He wouldn't sleep. Something was out there. Something... someone that could get them. Not that it mattered. Mike was out on patrol, not much was going to get past him. He should just go to bed. He knew that he'd have to go out on patrol when Mike came back, and he'd be no good to them if he was half dead tired.
Donatello stood and walked upstairs for what seemed the fiftieth time that night. Stopping at Venus and Mike's doorway, he heard the faint tink of Tyler's crib mobile as it finished the nursery song "Baa baa Black Sheep". He looked at the bed and saw Venus' sleeping form. The turtle listened to his sister's even, quiet breath.
Donatello took a final look at them, then moved on. Stopping at Abigail's door, he peered in to see her sleeping. Her bed was in shambles. She had no doubt been tossing and turning. However, now she seemed to be at peace, resting.
Donatello paused at the entrance to his room, staring at the contents within. A single unkept bed, a cluttered desk with an old typewriter on it. In one corner an old Packard Bell computer, in another a equally cluttered work table.
Don's eyes returned to the unmade bed. He knew that if he tried to sleep he couldn't. So why try?
He pulled a blanket out of the pile of covers and turned to head back down the stairs. When he reached the bottom of them he wrapped the blanket around himself and headed to sit on the couch.
'Wait a second!' Donnie paused suddenly. What was that noise? Dropping the blanket to the floor and drawing his bo, he moved towards the front door where the noise seemed to come from... It sounded like someone picking the lock 'Oh shit!' he thought to himself and readied myself.
He heard the bolt slide out and saw the door handle turn. The door opened and a strange figure was seen. Before Don had a chance to ponder the silhouette, it dumped a dead body onto his floor.
"What the..?" he asked aloud. The dead man was wearing a gi, he was undoubtedly a ninja.
"Brought you a present." came an unmistakable raspy voice.
"Raph?"
"Heh." Raph said, stepping into the light, "You were expecting maybe... the swamp thing?"
Don looked at his brother intently. Raph was a mess. His clothes were a shredded mess of blood and mud. His face and indeed any exposed skin or shell was covered in a thick layer of brown mud. His right eye was covered by a well-worn black eye-patch, and the skin he could see peeking out around the mud was bloodied or scarred, or both.
Raph smiled a little at his brother, cracking the dried mud on his face. "Do I pass inspection, Donnie T?" he asked, his voice dripping sharp-edged sarcasm.
Don shook his head. "Get your ass in here, Raph! Mike's out on patrol. I don't want our security compromised, and having an open door does that quite well." 'Hell,' Don added silently, 'Just having Raph around seriously compromises our security! He's the damn reason we've been infiltrated to begin with!'
Raph lurched inside, limping alternately on each leg, telling Don that both of them hurt. Raphael collapsed into the armchair in the living room. Don looked around outside, his eyes scanning the darkness of the tree line, looking for any sign of movement or life.
"I wasn't followed." Raph assured him, "Only one who was following me was that dead bastard by your feet."
"Where have I heard that before?" Don said, reminding Raph of the time when bringing April to their lair he had revealed the location of their home to the Foot.
"Aw shuttup, dipshit." Raph growled, "I ain't no stupid teenage turtle no more."
"Yeah, now you're a stupid middle-aged turtle." Don said, and satisfied that Raph hadn't been followed, he closed the door. He dropped the dead bolt back into place and armed the security system, cursing himself for not doing that earlier. 'Last damn time I ever depend on good old fashion watchdogging over technology.' he thought to himself.
"Shut yer yapper, Don. I brought in that straggler, didn't I?"
Don looked down at the bloodied corpse at his feet. "Yeah, thanks a lot. Now I need to clean the carpet, Raph."
"You're welcome." Raph quipped sarcastically, "You should know better than to have a light colored carpet when you're part of a family of ninjas."
"Most of my family aren't as incredibly rude as you, Raphael." Don replied as he heaved the dead weight of the corpse over his shoulder. "I'm putting this in the basement, no need for the others to observe your handiwork."
Raph grunted in reply.
"Try not to break anything while I'm down there." Don said as he opened the door to the basement. A crash was heard as Raphael knocked a pile of coasters off the end table just to annoy Donatello. Donnie sighed, irritated, and rolled his eyes before continuing down the stairs.
After he had laid the body out on the basement floor and thrown a sheet over it, Don came back upstairs. He knelt down and picked up the coasters that were strewn on the floor behind the recliner, grumbling softly to himself. Raphael stayed silent. As Donatello stood up to set the coasters back on the end table, he noticed why. Raph was out of it. His head cocked slightly up and his mouth hanging open, his closed eye showed as some of the only skin on his face that wasn't brown with mud. 'He must really be wiped out.' Don thought to himself.
"Get up, Raph. Go clean yourself up." Don said in disgust when he saw the mess Raph was making on his carpeting.
When his brother didn't respond, Don shoved him a little. Raph's head thumped limply down onto his plastron and he slouched down into a position that had to be uncomfortable. "Aw shit." Don muttered, irritated. He checked on his brother's breathing and other vitals and realized with a groan that Raph was unconscious.
Donatello looked Raph over. There were several wounds that were leaking enough blood to cause unconsciousness, and, he noticed with irritation, staining his furniture.
"Damn it Raph." Don complained to no one in particular, "Why do you have to do this shit?"
Tucking one arm under Raph's knees and the other around the top area of his shell, Don picked him up and headed towards the bathroom. Once there, he lay the limp body on the linoleum and went to get his first aid kit.
Coming back in, Don stood lingering in the doorway a moment longer, unsure on where to start. 'Well, dirt is never good for a wound.' thought Donnie to himself. He took a washcloth from the cupboard and wiped it over an oozing cut on his brother's cheek.
"Oh, gross." Don said, disgusted. The cloth came away completely covered with filth. He noticed also, to his disappointment, that Raph's face seemed no better.
"Oh great. I'm gonna have to bathe him." Don turned on the water in the tub. The old pipes groaned and complained when asked to produce water, but soon gave up their protests and clean water ran out of the spigot into the old tub. The familiar noises reminded Don of a time decades earlier when he had filled this same tub for the very same turtle he was filling it for now. Of course, he'd had Leo's help to get Raph into it at the time. 'I bet Raph weighed a lot more at that time too.' Don thought as he looked at Raph's emaciated form.
Don knelt down and started peeling the layers off of the unconscious turtle, starting with a surprisingly new looking thinsulite coat. As the layers joined the pile of cloth on the floor, and the water filled the bottom of the tub, Don started noticing a nasty stench. He looked at his brother... It was Raph! Raphael stunk something awful. Like blood, body odor, urine, and dirty mud all mixed together. "When's the last time you took a bath?" There was no response. Donatello hadn't expected one.
Don reached into the tub and turned off the water. He turned and looked his brother over. He didn't look much better than he smelled. He still had a layer or two of cloth clinging to him, cemented on with both wet and dry blood and mud. Parts of his body that hadn't been covered with cloth, such as his feet and face, were still caked with mud, dead leaves, and other such debris.
Where the cloth had fully been removed, the semi clean skin underneath had a sickly yellowish pallor to it, nothing close to the green it should have been. Festering sores dotted Raph's legs, either pressure sores or wounds that had never been cleaned nor wrapped.
Donatello sighed, feeling a bit sorry for his brother, but he shook it off, telling himself that Raph had brought this on himself, which he had.
Donnie cautiously lifted up the eye-patch that covered Raph's right eye, and was greeted by a sickening sight. Gook, yellowed gauze, and bloody tissues were stuffed into a hole that Raph's eye once occupied. Don shuttered at the thought that he was going to have to clean that out. However, he knew it was the only way to avoid infection.
"Don?" Donatello, startled at the intrusion, let go of the eye-patch and it went back into place with a snap. Mike was standing in the doorway, looking visibly relieved. "Jeez, with the mess out there, I thought we had been ambushed." Mike paused, seeing the mess of a turtle who lay in the tub for the first time. "Oh my god! What is that, Don? We haven't been attacked, have we?"
"No... Not yet at least, Mikey." Don said, "This is.... Raph."
Mike blinked, taken aback. Raph hadn't looked that bad the last time Mike had seen him, which had only been a day or so ago. But, then again, Mike had only gotten a glance in the dark at his brother then. Moreover, Raph hadn't exactly looked in the best of health even then. Mike sighed and knelt down, taking a washcloth and aiding Don to try and clean their helpless brother.
Mike sat in the armchair, thumbing through a magazine. He paused a moment and looked at Raph. His brother lay sprawled on the couch. Raphael had awoken after Don and him had washed up and were dressing his wounds. He had seemed semi-coherent but still pretty out of it. Mike was pretty sure it was the blood loss that had made him so light headed. As soon as he had gotten to the couch, Raph had fallen asleep again.
Mike sighed and set the magazine on the coffee table. Picking up a blanket that laid by the couch, Mikey covered his brother up, tucking the blanket under Raph's scarred carapace. Mike sighed again as he sat back down and stared at his oblivious sibling.
Raphael looked like a mummy with all the gauze and bandaging tape they had on him. Mike was surprised at how lean his brother had become. Raph had always been the heftiest of them all, with full shoulders and a strong solid figure, but this Raph... he seemed to barely fill his shell. His arms had no thickness to them, just thin muscle and bone, and his shoulders had lost their fullness. Malnutrition had taken its toll on the body. Not only stripping Raph of his mass, but of his skin color as well. There was something disturbing about the yellowish pallor of Raph's skin in many places. It made Mike's stomach churn to look at it. It seemed that he had truly lost Raphael. This ... thing that had lurched back into their lives could not be his brother, could it? The very idea that Raphael, the strongest of his brothers, could be reduced to this... frankly, it scared Mike.
"Mike?" Venus stood at the door to the upstairs. She closed it quietly and then came over into the living room. "I thought I heard something down here earlier." Venus paused as she approached the couch. "Don?" she said, concern etched on her face.
Mike smiled. It was dark in here, and they did look alike... "No. Raph."
"Oh..." Venus paused, unsure on what to say, "He came back."
"That he did." Mike countered.
"Whatcha doing down here?"
"Don's on patrol. I'm keeping an eye on the mummy over there." Mike smiled and grabbed Meih by the arm and pulled her down into his lap.
"Hey!" she said, looking at him, "I thought you were supposed to be watching your buddy there, buster."
"The only thing I wanna watch right now is you." Mike smiled at his wife, "And anyway, I gots good hearing. I'll hear anything he does before I see it anyway."
Venus laughed and put her arms around Mike's neck. She leaned into him and met his lips in a kiss. Mike smiled against her mouth and returned the kiss with a fervor, running his hand up to her neck.
"BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT" The alarm sounded, startling Mike and Venus out of their embrace. Mike stood up quickly, and Meih Pei Chi fell to the floor with a thunk.
Quickly Venus recovered though, and stood up, fear in her eyes. In the time that they had been here, Donatello had taught them enough to distinguish between the different alarms. This one meant the actual farmhouse had been broken into!
"I'm going to go check outside, Meih. You stay here." Mike snapped anxiously, his family's safety was first priority. He snarled as another alarm was heard sounding. This one meant the outer perimeter was down, The barbed wire was of no use without a complete circuit. They were wide open to intruders. Also, they had intruders. In other words, they were in deep shit.
"Oh my God!" Venus said, realizing something "Tyler!" She scrambled for the stairs and was up them in a blink of an eye before Mike could stop her.
"Shit." Mike said, turning to follow her. Suddenly he heard a crashing noise behind him. Two men dressed in ninja garb came in, crashing down the front door. Mike snarled and swung his chucks, creating two menacing blurs around his hands. If they thought two ninja were enough to stop him, they were sadly mistaken, especially if he was defending his family.
"Bring it on." he hissed low. The two ninjas attacked at once. Mike dodged the left one's sloppy and pitifully slow attack. The right one got twenty pounds of chuck slammed painfully right in the gullet, and doubled over in agony like a paper ribbon. Mike left righty writhing on the floor in anguish and turned his attention to the other one.
This one was armed with a kusari-fundo, but it was painfully obvious that he hadn't the faintest idea how to use it. One couldn't say he didn't try though. He hurled the chained weapon towards Michaelangelo. This turned out to be a very ignorant move. Catching the spinning weighted chain in one hand, Mike smirked sardonically. "You seem to need some lessons on how to use this. Let me teach you." Using the ninja's own weapon, he lashed the kusari-fundo out towards his opponent's head, and smashed him senseless with the weighted end. The ninja fell to the ground next to his squirming partner, out like a light. Michaelangelo took the opportunity to put righty out of his misery by smashing him in the noggin just hard enough to knock him out.
Mike smiled at a job well done for a second before turning to run up the stairs to check on Venus. A sound behind him stopped the turtle dead in his tracks. 'More ninja?' Mike thought to himself. He whirled around, chucks at the ready. "I really don't have time for this, but if you want a fight, let's dance!"
"I don't wanna fight, Mike." Don surprised him, being the one whom he had heard. "We gotta get out of here. Now!"
"What about Ve-"
"I got her! Now let's get Raph and get out of here before their reinforcements show up!!"
"Damn." Mike jogged over to where Raph lay, stashing his chucks in his belt. Together the two brothers hoisted Raphael between them and headed out the door to the waiting van.
Chapter 6 coming soon (i hope!)