Nalong - Chapter 6

Disclaimer: If you still think I own the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles you are very, very wrong. The same applies of you think I get paid for this. Please don't sue.

I had a couple of questions about the title of this story. You haven't missed anything symbolic relating to the title yet. Nalong is symbolic to the story and an explanation is coming, I promise, but explanation now is premature.

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"Oh come on Leo! There's gotta be something we can do?" Mikey insisted.

"Like what? You got any bright ideas? Because I'm fresh out!" Leo snapped, leaving Mikey a little taken aback at his harsh tone. "Oh, geez Mike, I'm sorry, I just…"

"No Leo, it's ok." Mikey replied seriously. After a moment he brightened. "Hey, I don't know what we're all worried about. We've beaten the odds a thousand times, so what's one more? By tomorrow Don and Raph will be back if for no other reason than to make sure that you don't go all angst-y big brother who must take himself WAY too seriously and blame himself for everything bad that happens." Mikey said, imitating Leo by crossing his arms high on his plastron and lowering his voice just a little. He returned to his normal bright tone and continued. "They wouldn't dare leave me with that!"

Leo laughed a little. "I think you're wrong Mikey. They'll be back alright, but it will be to save me from putting up with your bad jokes!"

They heard small snorts of laughter from Annie, and Eric.

"You're not supposed to think that's funny." Mikey informed them, which only made them laugh more. "Leo is Mr. Serious, he's the straight man."

"You know, Abbott got as many laughs as Costello, if not more." Eric told him.

"Why am I not surprised you know that? There is no way you could have been alive then..." Mikey hesitated a moment realizing that he didn't know why Eric, Annie and Steve were here. Maybe Eric HAD been alive for those films. "You weren't alive then, right?" He continued unsurely.

"Hey, those films are classics!" Eric had to laugh at the look on Mikey's face, and the one on Leo's for that matter. "And no, I wasn't alive then. It's called the magic of VHS and DVD."

"Which, since you seem to know who he's talking about, I assume you are familiar with." Annie put in.

"He got paid more too." Steve added of Abbot as he put the book down.

"Ok, so it might have been a bad choice of words. But Leo's not supposed to be funny!" Mikey grumbled.

Leo was honestly smiling now and Mikey knew that his work here was done. Now he just had to convince himself. Raph and Donnie would be back. They had to come back, they just had to.

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"April, you sure you know what you're doing?" Casey asked.

"Yes Casey. It's just chemistry." They were in Don's lab area and April was trying to figure out just what was on those darts. Knowing what poison has been used might be able to narrow down the places where the Turtles could be. She was also waiting for a phone call from the manufacturer of the darts. She had searched the type of dart and had stumbled on the manufacturer's website. Now it was just a matter of figuring out who the buyer was. That was going to be the tough part.

Casey watched as April swabbed one of the darts and dropped the swab into a test tube. She added a clear liquid that Casey didn't know the name of and swirled the test tube gently. Nothing happened and he heard April sigh. She picked up a pencil and scratched out another name on her list of possible poisons and tranquilizers.

"One down, only a couple hundred more to go." She muttered.

Splinter allowed himself a small smile at the comment. All he could do for now was wait and allow April to work.

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"Yo, Donnie!" Raphael called across the group as he worked his way to his purple-clad brother. As he shoved his way through the group he wondered if these idiots had figured out that they were brothers yet.

"Raph? What are you…? Never mind. I don't even know why I was surprised." Don was divided about seeing his brother here. Part of him was upset that Raph had gotten into trouble and was now facing the Course, which Annie had told him most didn't survive, but another part of him was glad that he didn't have to do this alone.

Raphael glared at Donnie for a moment before softening his expression. Don did have a point. Raph had noticed that Don was using English. He also spoke in that silly falsetto voice he'd used with Leo the night before. That told Raph two important things: A) that the guards knew that they spoke English, and B) the morons still thought Don was a girl.

"I gotta admit Donnie; you're the last person I expected to see here." Raphael responded in English with genuine shock his voice. He couldn't imagine Donnie doing anything that would get him in this much trouble, yet here was his quiet, pacifist brother in the group to take on the Course right along side him. "What did you do to wind up here?"

"They had us carrying water." Don stated with a shrug as if it meant something, too bad Raph couldn't figure out what it was supposed to mean. Noticing the look he received from Raph Don continued. "They gave me a tenbin to carry a couple of buckets on." He explained, still in that odd voice.

"You're kidding!" Raph couldn't believe this. "They just handed you a bo and expected what?"

"They didn't expect what they got." A sly smile crossed Don's features and Raphael had to laugh.

"You little devil! This is so great! I can't wait to see Leo's face when he finds out." Raph considered this new information but still didn't know why Don had done what he did. Finally he had to ask.

"179 prisoners escaped across the river," was Don's only response.

Now that explained everything. Raphael knew that Don's reason for getting into trouble would be a good one, and this was a good reason. At this moment he was very proud to call Donatello his brother.

"So, uh, what'd you do?" Don inquired. Raph had been afraid he'd ask that.

"I knocked a guard unconscious." Raph was going to let it go at that, but Don wasn't about to let him get off that easily. Donatello had two favorite questions, why and how. He already knew the how and Raphael could see the other question written on his brother's face. Don was silently asking him to continue.

"The jerk was picking on some old man, coming after him with a shock stick over nothing. He was really too old to keep the pace they expected anyway. I got angry and I hit the guard." Raph explained. He hit his palm with the other hand as he continued. "Just one punch and the guy fell down and went out like a light. It was pathetic really. Some guys, maybe 20 or so, got away in the commotion."

Raphael was terrified of what Don's reaction would be, and he looked down at the dirt as they walked after the crowd. Raph's hotheadedness had gotten him in here and only 20 had escaped compared to Don's 179. What he got hadn't been what he expected, Donatello smiled.

"You did good Raph." Donatello was whispering now. He felt really stupid talking in that falsetto voice he'd been using. A whisper was a whisper right? Not using vocal cords made the sound genderless.

"What?" Raphael had heard his brother just fine, but he was confused by what he had heard.

"You stood up for someone who couldn't stand up for himself, and to top it off you gave some people a chance to escape. I can think of no better reason to be stuck here." Don put a hand on Raph's shell.

"Hey Lovebirds, hands to yourself!"

Don immediately pulled his hand back, but he was fuming inside. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly releasing the anger from his system. From the look on Raphael's face he was just as angry, and about to…, well, do what Don really wanted to do at the moment, but all the same that couldn't be allowed now.

"No Raph! We're in enough trouble as it is." Don warned in a loud whisper. He was ready to restrain Raph if necessary, but hoped it wouldn't come to that. Restraining him would require physical contact and the guards had already objected to that.

The red banded turtle took a deep breath, held it a moment then let it out. Only then, when he recognized that Don had just done the same, did he realize how often he'd seen Donnie doing that. Don's patience was second only to Splinter's and Raphael had often wondered how his brother did it. It wasn't that Donatello never got mad, Raphael himself had tested Don's patience to the breaking point more than once, but it took a lot. Usually Donnie was already tired and/or frustrated and something small would set him off. Then there was that time with the sewer slider... But no matter how angry Don got it never lasted long. Once he had a moment to scream that was usually that, and he was back to his pacifist self. Raphael realized now that his brainiac brother did naturally what Raph himself had to be reminded to do. He pushed that piece of information to the back of his mind to focus instead on the task at hand, as they were rapidly approaching a large building that could be none other than the Course.

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Course runs were only done when enough prisoners had caused trouble to make it worthwhile, and with the trouble Don and Raph had instigated today, that number was high enough to run the Course this evening.

All 17 inmates slated for this evening's Course entered the building. The small room they were left in looked like it might have once been a walk-in freezer. As the guards exited they closed the door and locked it from the outside.

"What is this Donnie?"

"I don't know Raph." Now that the guards were gone he had returned to his normal voice. "If I had to guess…"

Don was cut-off by the sound of gas rushing into the room.

"I'd say it was a gas chamber." He finished. After thinking for a moment he continued. "It's called the Course right, so there's got to be a way out of here. It's not just a gas chamber." Don looked around for a moment then pointed across the room to a small terminal on the far wall. "Over there!" Around them the other prisoners were panicking and preventing Raph and Don from reaching the terminal. Attempts to push through the terrified group proved futile.

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A/N: The last section is about where the dream started. So I'm warning you now, it's about to get weird. I know that I said Mikey had a cameo in the dream, but he's not going to be here. Mikey and Leo are still in the barrack with Steve, Eric and Annie. Also I have kept the PG-13 rating, and the Course is where I believe it will be most applicable, just a warning. I don't think it's that bad but better safe than sorry right? Ok, so now Raph and Don are officially in the Course and that is going to be the focus of the next chapter. Mikey and Leo are going to have to wait a while, but they will be back in action soon!