Little Brother
By Maikafuiniel
Chapter 12
Tracing Turtle Traces
Donny, Leo, and Raph slowly trudged through the sewers; following a device that Donny had created should just such a situation arise. Admittedly none of them had ever expected to turn into kids again; but that really wasn't the point.
"So," Leo questioned after almost a full hour of silence, "Explain how this thing works Donny?"
"Yeah," Raphael continued, "'Cause if were just gonna' be walkin' all night, somebody is gonna' get their shell kicked it; and it ain't gonna be me."
"Relax guys," Donny tried to calm the pair down, "Don't get uptight; we're going to find him. This new device is called the 'Turtle Tracer'. It follows genetic markers left by phara-"
"The simplified version Donny," Leo asked wearily, "Please."
"Well," Donny said, trying to decide how to put it, "The Turtle Tracer… traces turtles. Because we're mutants we put off a different sort of… scent then either normal turtles, or normal humans; so we're just going to follow that."
"We're following Mikey's smell?" Raphael asked with a snort, "Strange things you come up with Donny."
"Actually," he continued, "It's more his pheromones we're tracing. They're the easiest, because since we're teens we put out a lot more of that then anything else. And trying to follow a smell in the sewers really isn't that easy."
"Um, Donny?" Leo asked, "You probably thought of this and all, but… Mikey's not a teen any more, so really… wouldn't we be following his steps from a long time ago? Like, before all this happened and he got into trouble?"
Donny looked at his brother, blinking a few times as he tried to think of a reason to dispute his brothers claim; while Raphael laughed. When he finally stopped, he turned to his brothers. "Alright; so we've just wasted a couple hours. What do we do now?"
"If Shredder hurt him already," Donny was saying faintly in the background, "It'll be all my fault; I've wasted so much time!"
"Nonsense," Leo tried to calm his brother down, "It was a good idea, and better then anything else we had. We just have to come up with something different now."
"Stupid, stupid, stupid," Donny was mumbling still in the background, "How could I have been so stupid?"
"Shut up," Raphael said suddenly, looking up to a sewer opening, "There are people; they'll hear you."
All three immediately fell silent, and slowly began to back away; stopping only when Leo held out a hand. "Wait a minute," he whispered, "Did you hear that; what they're talking about?"
All three were quiet.
"Yeah," one man was saying to the other, "I was just down by Mott and Pell; and there was this huge sound; like an earth-mover, but different, you know?"
"So?"
"I went to check it out, see what was what, thought maybe there might be somebody I could get a wallet off of or something- and there was the huge hole in the ground! Like, going straight down! I even went and threw a rock down, to see how far it went, and I couldn't hear it hit bottom!"
"You're kiddin' me!"
"Nope; you want to go see?"
"Sure!"
one man was saying to the other,All three turtles were quite for a moment, digesting what they heard, until finally Donny smiled. "Guys? You thinking what I'm thinking?"
"We beat them up for being thieves?" Raph asked.
"No," Donny sighed, "That sounds like one of the machines Bebop and Rocksteady drive to get down to the technodrome! All we have to do is get some climbing equipment, and follow the hole! We'll find Mikey in no time!"
The three smiled, and waiting until the two men were gone so that they could climb out of the sewers. When that had been accomplished; they began a treck to the corner of Mott and Pell.
They were going to save their little brother.
