Augh! It was so hard to write this chapter, although the begining was kinda fun to do. Anyway, I wanted to put this chapter up before midnight, so here it is. If it has any inclination that it was hastily written, then I'm sorry, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.
By the way, I kinda, sorta brought back A TMNT character from the old cartoon series. I revamped the character a little to fit my story, and if you wonder what this dude has to do with this story...well...you'll see. If any of y'all don't like what I done then tough, it's my story and I'll do what I want to.
Otherwise than that, enjoy and thanks!
Chapter 5
The Replacement-'Psycho'
It was late at night in the dim lair. Nothing was out of place; not a sound was heard or made…
It was definitely a moment Splinter could definitely appreciate.
The ninja master knelt quietly on the meditation mats in the dojo area, taking advantage of his sons' absence. He even could have meditated with Leon there, as the guest hardly ever made a sound during the day. But he was gone too, probably went outside to finally get some fresh air, the poor thing. He had been watching the turtle closely the past three days. He saw him inspect the lair, not with a sense of a regal, 'this isn't good enough for me' air, but with pure curiosity and fascination. He seemed impressed at how they lived, although his comments said otherwise. For one who said that they would only stay one night, he had certainly outstayed his welcome, at least in his sons' eyes. But Splinter didn't mind having the reclusive turtle; there was something about him he couldn't ignore. In his meditations, he tried to get some barring on Leon, but all he got was an image of a scared turtle hiding near a stairway, peeking out between the railings. It could have been a memory that had been pushed back into his mind a long time ago, or it could have been that he was thinking of his own sons, who looked too much like the young turtle inside his head. Normally, when he had a feeling about something, he was usually right. This time, he was having some doubts about the image that kept popping up inside his mind every time he thought of Leon, perhaps it was a sign from the beyond?
So Splinter kept meditating, surrounded by the candles the warmed and lit up the dark lair. It was comforting, to have the soft glow instead of the harsh light that electricity can produce, the light that his sons were so fond of. He was in his zone, his element, and nothing can distract him from it….
Except…
Splinter's ears perked up as he heard a sound being made in the lair. He could not discern exactly what the sound was. It was a low groan, but on closer inspection it actually sounded like 'mmmm' and it's echo's were repeated constantly, so the sound ended up surrounding the rat like a tangled net, not a good feeling to have when you are in an empty room.
Something, someone, was in here that shouldn't be…
The wise, old rat stood up, cautiously, warily. His ninja senses were kicking into overdrive as he inspected around him. He could not detect a single shadow that was out of place, and that worried him, for it meant that the intruder has mastered the way of invisibility so well that the ninja master couldn't see hide nor hair of him…or her.
This was really not good, not good at all.
He readied his mind and his body. If the intruder were to attack, it would not catch the ninja master off guard. But the intruder seemed to be biding its time, stretching out the moments, making the old rat sweat. Splinter could not take much more of this, he could not take that that this person could violate his privacy so carelessly, so purposely. And it didn't seem to care if it was going to live or die either. So he decided to call it out instead, hoping that's what it was waiting for, so he can finally see what in the world is haunting him so badly.
"Show yourself! Come and face me like a true warrior. Prove that you have some honor!"
He waited for the response, but silence ensued. Then, in a voice that made chills run down his spine, he heard,
"…rat…"
It was only a horse whisper, but it sounded like hunger, there was no other word to explain it. He was being hunted, and it was only a matter of time before he was caught.
"…mmmm…rat…yummy…"
Splinter fought hard against the rising desire to flee, as it was in his nature to do so when such danger was about, but he was a ninja, and ninjas do not run away from threats. He wanted to face this creature, whatever it was, and fight it like he had been taught to do. He couldn't explain why he was so scared; after all he was a four-foot giant rat, what could possibly eat him now? But he knew deep down inside; this was no ordinary predator he was facing, this one sounded as if he had gone insane.
Splinter backed up all the way to the stairwell, facing the sewer entrance as he did so, hoping against hope that the thing would move into the poor light. He needed to get to a light switch and fast, so he can see it more clearly, but before he could move to do that, he felt a drop of water on top of his head. Looking up, he thought he was going to see a leak coming out from one of the many pipes running through the lair.
But what he found was much, much worse…
Upside down, he can tell it was a turtle, but its sinister grin showing its appalling teeth, made him think other wise. He backed away from the creature hastily, not wanting to be drooled on some more. The creature dropped down with the grace of a well-trained ninja, and pulled out a pair of badly chewed katanas, yes, chewed, like a pencil. It leapt down, then rolled close to the fear-filled rat, and sniffed at him experimentally, as if it was trying to determine that he was good enough to be eaten. Obviously, he was because suddenly it came down hard, biting Splinter on the shoulder was proceeding to rip the flesh away.
"SENSEI!"
Out of nowhere, a heavy object forced the carnivore off of the ninja master, causing him to fall back in surprise.
"Hurry, restrain him!"
"Wow, he's strong."
"Ewww, does that even look like a turtle to you?"
Splinter got up slowly trying not to move his shoulder, nothing ever tried to eat him before, since he's been a pet, and therefore always been in the safety of his cage.
Guess there is a first time for everything.
"Are you okay, sensei?" Raphael asked him worried. He and Leon knelt down to the ground to inspect the old rat, they looked at his shoulder and cringed; the bite wound was flowing freely and many of the muscles were exposed.
"Wow, that thing did a number on you." Leon commented.
"This requires some major stitches and a lot of antibiotics." Donatello observed, tenderly picking up his sensei by putting a supporting hand behind his back. Splinter was still in shock, much of it was going away thanks to the rescuing presence of his sons and Leon, and his state of mind is slowly returning to normal. The lights were finally on and Splinter took a good look at the thing that attacked him. It was truly hideous to behold for the thing was a turtle, but it had some kind on mold growing on its shell, making it look fuzzy. It's eyes were no more than crude slashes, it's skin was the color of a puke green, but most horrifying of all was the razor-sharp pointy teeth that it was showing off while trying to get out of Mikey's grip.
"We need to go somewhere safe, obviously that thing was sent after us, so that means someone knows where we live." Don announced; cleaning up Splinter's wound the best he could, but it was still bleeding.
Leon was just staring at the beast, never taking his eyes off of it; he just had a bad feeling about where that thing came from. And if he was right, then it was his fault that this had happened…
"Hello, earth to turtle, what are you thinking about?" Raph inquired, interrupting the lone turtle's thoughts.
"I'm sorry, was there something that required my attention?" Leon asked, it was the first time he said he was sorry about anything, which was a shock to anyone in the room, but Raph retained his cool as he said,
"Yeah, we were wondering if you had an idea about a safe place to go, although I told Sensei here that I doubt it, since you seemed to be wandering around and all."
Leon looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, "Yes, I do, but I really don't want to go back there."
"Why not?" Raph inquired, he really wanted to know what made this turtle tick, and going to a place he lived seemed to be a good start. And if he had a place after all, then why bother them? It obviously was better then here, that's for sure.
Leon's face was expressionless; "I don't want to talk about it."
But before Raph could form a response to that blunt, quick statement, he heard a cry from his brother.
"OWWWWW! He's trying to eat my arm!"
"Slash want yummy! Slash wants yummy now! Turtle taste good!"
They all turned to see that the thing was now proceeding to tear apart Mikey's forearm. Horrified all of them made moves to help Mikey, but Leon got there first. With a swish of his katana, he quickly sliced the thing diagonally, from left shoulder down to the stomach, and the creature cried out in agony. He cleaned the blood off of his sword with a tissue that was nearby, then pocketed it in his belt. Luckily, everyone was to preoccupied with Mike and his wound to notice what Leon had just done, except for the fact that he had the sense to kill the damn monster before anything worse happened. The turtles are just not used to killing just because, they valued all life, but not Leon. Why he didn't do it before now was beyond any of them, but it didn't matter at the moment, as there were now two people in desperate need of medical help.
"Well, are you going to help us out now?" Raph demanded, putting pressure on Mike's wound. Mike was whimpering about what had happened to him, every so often you can hear him mutter the word 'rabies,' and it may be true as the body was starting to foam at the mouth now…
Leon gave a sigh that indicated he didn't really want to, but outwardly he said, "Fine, it's a long way so we need to take a vehicle of some sort…if you have one."
"We do." Don said simply, he then turned to Raph, "Can you help Sensei and Mike get to the Battle Shell? Raph…?"
Raphael was leaning heavily on the back of an armchair, he felt a sudden wave of dizziness came over him and as bad as he tried to shake it, it was much too hard…
"Raph!"
He felt darkness closing in on him and the last memory he had was of Leon rushing over….
