Chapter 2

"You three had best stay here," Leonardo whispered. "If we all go we might startle her."

Leo's brothers watched him walk cautiously towards the young girl.

"Like a giant talking reptile isn't gonna startle her, anyway." Raphael mumbled.

Leo glanced back him with a frown. He really hoped the girl wouldn't freak out at the sight of him and run deeper into the sewers.

The girl noticed him and started. She stepped back, her eyes wide with fear.

"Don't be scared." Leo whispered. "It's okay. I won't come close."

The girl took another step back, she looked like she might bolt.

"I just want to help you get out..." Leo added, hastily. He didn't want her to get lost in the tunnels. Leonardo climbed the metal rungs and pushed at the manhole cover. It was more difficult to move than most he realised as he struggled with it.

The girl stared up at him, her head cocked to one side, looking a little awed. Leo couldn't believe how dirty she looked. She must've been wandering around the sewers for quite sometime. He wondered how she'd got down there in the first place.

If I lived in a house or an apartment, the last thing I'd want to do is come down here, he thought to himself. Just as he was thinking of getting one of his brothers to help, the manhole cover suddenly gave way. Leo pushed it across with one hand as he held on to the rungs of the ladder. He jumped down.

"There you go." He said. "You should go straight to the hospital."

The girl stared up at the hole in the tunnel roof, squinting into the light. She put a small white hand on a rung, a thin silver bracelet slid down her pale arm and stopped. She looked up again and began to climb, then she vanished through the opening.

"How did she get down here?" Mike wondered.

"Maybe she fell." Leo suggested.

"Fell? How?" Don gave a snort.

"Who cares." Raph scowled. "She's gone. That's all that matters. I'm more concerned about that thing Mikey was chasing."

"You were unable to find it?" Splinter asked. He entered the room carrying a mug of tea. "What did it look like?"

"I don't know, it was dark, there are no grates there so there was no light shining through."

"Did it seem human?" Splinter persisted.

"I don't know, kind of. I was too busy trying to catch it. It was fast. Unreal."

"The thing I saw was kind of human shaped." Don acknowledged. "Perhaps it was just that girl."

"Are you saying I couldn't catch up to a little girl?" Mike frowned irritably at Don.

Don raised his eyebrows realising the obvious flaw in his logic and then shook his head, but Raph started to laugh.

"Too much pizza and videogames Mikey! You need to train harder!"

"Indeed." Splinter said with a smile. "Perhaps more of your free time could be spent a little more conscientiously."

Leo nodded in agreement and fixed an admonishing look towards Mike.

"A kid isn't gonna get away from me and you know it." Mike didn't take too kindly to Raph's teasing. "It was something else."

Splinter took a sip of tea. "There are very strange creatures down here, as you all know. I think we must now be wary of this one also, until we understand its intentions."

Raphael stood stock still, his ears straining to pick out and identify every sound that surrounded him. This was definitely the place Mike and Don had taken them to, but there was no sign of any creature.

After their talk with Splinter, Raph had decided he would go and find out what the creature's intentions were whether it liked it or not. So there he was, unable to find so much as a footprint.

The place made him feel uncomfortable, too. It was dark, silent and foul smelling. It had an eerie feel to it. Raph wasn't surprised that it had bothered Mikey; he didn't like it himself. Not that he'd admit that out loud. The place hadn't seemed so bad when his brothers were there. His spine tingled and he felt an urge to run.

Raph's senses kicked in and he quickly and silently stepped back into the shadows. He could smell something else, mingled with the foul stink. It was more pleasant, but with a strange, sickly sweetness, like a cheap kids perfume. He stood as still as death, hardly breathing. Then he heard someone else breathing, fast breathing as though whatever it was had been running, or was afraid. Raph leapt out, intending to grab the creature, but it flung itself back against the wall and emitted a terrified shriek. Raph only just managed to stop himself as he found himself staring into the frightened eyes of the girl they saw yesterday.

"What the…" Raph stared at her, his heart racing. He could have hurt her, or worse, killed her.

"What the hell are you doing back down here?" He yelled. "Are you stupid?" Unlike Leo, Raph didn't care about scaring her. If she was scared then she was less likely to come back, right?

The girl stared back at him petrified. Her mouth working but no sound coming forth, eventually she managed to force some words out. "…they keep …pushing me back in…"

Raph was still angry; he couldn't believe how stupid someone could be. What the hell was so attractive about a sewer anyway? If he had a choice he certainly wouldn't be living down here. Then the kid's words sank in and he hesitated, genuinely concerned.

"Who keeps pushing you back in?"

The girl pointed at the roof of the sewer tunnel.

Raphael swore under his breath. He walked to the manhole Leo had climbed to and began to struggle with it. It was hard to open. Raph had wondered what had taken Leo so long, now he knew. Raph began to get more and more annoyed until finally he got it open. He shoved the heavy metal cover to the side and cautiously peered through the hole. He found himself looking at an alleyway strewn with trash. Raph climbed out and had a look around, then jumped back down into the sewer.

"There's no one up there now," he said.

The girl looked from him to the opening above her. She gazed at it a moment then preceded to climb out, disappearing through the manhole. Raph waited for her to close it over, and swore when she didn't. She hadn't bothered the day before either. He climbed up and closed it himself, grumbling all the while.

But Raph felt uneasy as he walked back. Something wasn't right. He knew it. He just couldn't quite work out what.

"That kid was down here again." Raph noted after training.

Leonardo was wiping the back of his neck with a towel. He looked up, surprised. "Again?"

"Yeah. In that same disgusting area."

"I told you not to go back there!" Leo snapped.

"Yeah." Raph shrugged his shoulders, disinterestedly. "You tell me a lot of things."

Leo counted to ten in his head. He wasn't going to let Raph rile him. He was going to finish the conversation, have a nice hot shower and then sit and meditate for an hour.

"She said someone pushed her back in."

Leo frowned. "Did you see anyone?"

"Nope."

"I take it you went to try and find Mikey's monster?"

"Yeah. No sign. Just that stupid kid. But y'know Leo, something's off. I can't put my finger on it."

"What if she's telling people she saw giant turtles in the sewers, and they're looking for us. Maybe she came back to find us again." Mike said. "Maybe they pushed her in as bait! Inquisitive Turtle bait!"

Leo's brow furrowed even more.

"You're talking crap, Mike. I've just been." Raph said. "There's no sign anyone else has been there."

"Except the girl was there." Leo answered reproachfully.

"Yeah. And now she's gone." Raph glowered.

"I've got more important things to do, anyway." Don piped up from his computer.

"Yeah, right. Important." Mikey smirked over at Don. "Like flirting with glittergirl19 on chat. Real important..."

Don tapped a key and the computer screen reverted to the desktop. He gave Mike a stony look. "I was not flirting. I do not 'flirt'."

"I think we should check anyway." Leo said to Raph. "You might have missed something…"

Raph clenched his fists. Did Leo really think he was that incompetent? Raph wasn't going to just stand there and take that affront to his abilities. Hell no.

"Look. Nothing. Nada. Absolute zilch." Raph went to the wall where Don had seen the shadowy figure and tapped it with his sai. "I can't believe I let you drag me here again." He fixed Leo with an angry glare.

Leo responded with an equally angry look. "We're searching for signs of humans looking for us now, not Mikey's weird monster." Leo rolled his eyes.

"C'mon guys, don't start fighting again." Mike groaned.

"We'd get stuff done a lot quicker if you two didn't insist on fighting for dominance every two minutes." Don added irritably. "Like rutting stags," he muttered quietly.

"Can I help it if Leo is an uptight jerk who can't trust my word?" Raph glowered.

"Perhaps if you listened to me when I say not to do something then I would trust you…" Leo retorted.

"And why the hell should I do what you tell me to? I can go where the hell I want."

"Not if it jeopardises our safety!"

"Blah blah blah. Will you both stop." Don sighed. "Can we go home now? This has got to be the worst smelling part of the sewers. It makes me want to vomit."

Mike pulled a face. "All I can smell is flowers."

Raph glanced at him. "Like perfume or somethin'?"

"Oh no…"

The other three turtles turned and looked at Leo. He was a little further up from them, peering down one of the other tunnels. The same tunnel they'd seen the girl in. He looked a little pale.

"What?" His brothers hurried over to him, but Leo put his hand out to silence them.

"Look." Leo whispered.

The girl was back again, standing under the manhole, looking up. She reached her arm out and jumped trying to touch the roof of the tunnel, then she paused, staring at the manhole cover. She climbed the rungs of the rusty ladder, and
pushed at the metal disc with a thin white arm.